The Church from Age to Age: A History from Galilee to Global Christianity

Concordia Publishing House has recently released a fine new church history textbook titled The Church from Age to Age: A History from Galilee to Global Christianity, under the general editorship of Edward A. Engelbrecht. Simply put, The Church from Age to Age is the best single-volume church history textbook I’ve read. Though written from an explicitly Lutheran perspective, the contributors avoid an unnecessarily party spirit and write for a broader Christian audience.

As a specialist in modern church history, I’m especially thankful the contributors give considerable treatment to post-1914 persons and events, including the expansion and development of Christianity in the non-Western world. The book is user-friendly, combining an easily readable narrative with a generous amount of pictures, charts, time lines, appendices, bibliographies, and primary source selections. I will likely use it in my church history survey classes next year. It will mean updating my reading quizzes (bummer), but it’s worth it to get this book into the hands of my students.

In the space below, I’ve reproduced the endorsement I wrote for the book. Other endorsers include scholars such as Doug Sweeney, Bradley Nassif, Joseph Amar, Garth Rosell, Joel Elowsky, and my fellow Southern Baptist church historians Robert Caldwell (SWBTS) and Chris Chun (GGBTS). I’d encourage you to add The Church from Age to Age to your personal library and your church’s library and/or book stall. You won’t find a better survey of church history written from a confessional Protestant perspective.

There are many fine church history surveys available, but I’m delighted to commend The Church from Age to Age as one of the very best. This one-volume update to the highly acclaimed Church in History series is comprehensive enough for use in graduate courses, but the narrative style makes it a good choice for undergraduates and laypersons as well. The inclusion of primary source readings offer a “microscopic” complement to the generally “telescopic” approach of the book. The attempt to tell the story of church history from a global perspective represents the best of recent scholarship and accurately reflects the dispersion and diversity of the Christian movement. I hope The Church from Age to Age gains a wide reading in seminaries, among clergy, and even in congregational reading circles.

Nathan A. Finn, PhD
Associate Professor of History Theology and Baptist Studies
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary