70 Great Christians: The Story of the Christian Church

by Geoffrey Hanks

70 Great Christians has become a publishing phenomenon! It is a consistent best seller in Christian Bookshops and has found markets all around the World. The Story of the Church is a story of people moved by God to achieve things for his glory. Some are from privileged backgrounds but the majority started out as ordinary people just like you. God says that he will 'choose the foolish things of this world to confound the wise' and so here we find people who are prepared to stand up to the spirit of the age and become fools for Christ's sake. This is a useful resource book for pastors, teachers and schools. More than that it is a well written and comprehensive collection of biographies of those people who have given all (sometimes mistakenly) for the God they sought to serve.

Genres: Christian, Biography

360 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2000

Reviews

[Jen]

My first disappointment was that this was not a story of the world Christian church, but a story of the church mostly in Great Britain, with an emphasis on evangelicals. My second disappointment was that someone apparently gave the author a list of things that anger/annoy me, and he ticked off as many of them as he could: sexist language and attitudes, paternalism toward non-Westerners, oversimplification of history, portrayal of people as "good" or "bad" and the presentation of all their actions through that lens, overuse of commas, and the use of conjunctions to link two sentences together that really have nothing to do with each other. Ugh.

[Deepak George]

Attempt this book only if you are interested in history or have an average knowledge of general world history,at least..Or you would find it monotonous and boring to follow.
Having said that, if you love history and you are interested in the story of the Church,I completely recommend this book as a starter to your quest.
Amazing,relevant and concise information about most of the Great Christian leaders/teachers and doctors of the Church that have directly/indirectly contributed to its growth.
A chronologically well written book,and although its just a collection of biographies..it gives a good insight into the struggles the Church underwent through the different eras.
However,the author could have included or mentioned a few fathers of the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches,post council of Chalcedon period...

[A Gill]

This book looks at 70 figures who are considered key to church history. It is broken down into bitesize chapters and also includes tables, which could be helpful. It is a little dry and quite text-bookish. This could be forgiven though. What I can't forgive is that it ignores the entire EASTERN church. From the Apostles right the way through to about 1200AD there was a thriving church from Northern Africa (including Egypt), the Middle East (including places like Iraq and Syria), Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), even stretching to China. It completely ignores the church in India which traces its lineage back to the Apostle Thomas. In these areas the church operated on multiple languages (not Latin!) and had a thriving monastic tradition (this book only covers Catholic monasticism). It talks about the 'Christian Empire' based in Rome but forgets about the Byzantine Empire. An example of a 'great' Christian from the Eastern Church is Timothy I of selucia - a bishop who confronted gnostic heresies and saw the Church expand to Tehran, further into Syria, Turkestan etc under his shepherding.
In short the book misses out millions of square miles of Christian history and contributes to the evangelical mindset that whilst the gospel might be for the nations, its preservation is down to white Europeans.

[Amanda Lackey Delaluz]

This gave a good Timeline of Christian History, I was disappointed that they mixed Catholicism in as Christian and that they included some that preached a different gospel in the Pentecostal movement. It did a lot to discredit the Author's writing in my opinion that distinctions were not made.

[Suciu Adi]

I need this book for a homework.

[Daniel Onoyom]

I not able to read my books

[Johu Rathore]

Most inspiring and life changing book.

[Destiny Selema]

Very encouraging book

[Ti-Khoei Goamub]

How do I read.

[Sachin Savio]

Very good

[Binoy Chacko]

Ida scudder's story needs some correction

[Carmen]

interesting information about some people I was familiiar with and others I had never heard about;difficult to follow the story of the christian church for a beginner because main emphasis is on the individual

[Dedy]

I learned that the history of christianity is very long and so amazing.

[Andy Anderson]

awesome book starting from the onset of the church thru late 20th century.... Great read on influential servants of God.

[Semalaiappan]

good books must read every christians

[Dayo Adewoye]

A very helpful introduction to the key figures and events in the history of christianity. It was, I think, my first book on church history, and I really enjoyed it.