I think I can give a rough outline of church history, and I don’t mean the founding of my own church. The BBC has a six DVD set which promises to fill in many of the details I would miss. It’s called A History of Christianity: the First Three Thousand Years. Hosted by Dairmaid MacCulloch, professor of history of the church and fellow at St. Cross College, Oxford, this historical overview looks well-worth your time, though I can’t tell if MacCulloch will lead viewers down a dark road of doubting the supernatural and God’s testimony in the world or leave the faith examined but uncondemned. After watching only the first disc, I believe he will remain respectful, if nothing else.

Here’s a list of disc titles:

Program 1: The First Christianity

Program 2: Catholicism: The Unpredictable Rise of Rome

Program 3: Orthodoxy: From Empire to Empire

Program 4: Reformation: The Individual Before God

Program 5: Protestantism: The Evangelical Explosion

Program 6: God in Dock

I received the first disc for review. Ambrose Video is distributing the DVDs and has a trailer on their product page.

“The First Christianity” was beautiful filmed, as you’d expect. Professor MacCulloch says he won’t shy away from controversy, but he doesn’t delve deeply into it either. His explanation of the major argument over the divine vs. human nature of Jesus did not attempt to settle it with Scripture. He only presented the proponents with their claims and described how the arguments fell out.

In this part of the series, MacCulloch describes what he calls the eastern road out of Jerusalem. Continue reading A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years →