The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch

by Molly Worthen

The history of Christianity over the past 500 years is a dramatic story. Within our cultures, our politics, and our very relationship to the world at large, Christianity has been at the center of momentous transformations around the globe and is now the largest religion in the world. The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch is your chance to explore one of the most powerful stories in world history. Over 36 fascinating lectures, Professor Molly Worthen of the University of North Carolina traces the story of Christianity as it transformed from a relatively homogenous entity at the end of the Middle Ages through the diverse global religion of today. While Professor Worthen gives you plenty of insight into theology, her primary focus is to place Christianity in its historical context—the how and why of history as much as the who, what, and when. She personalizes history with stories of individual players and blends their narratives with larger trends give you the full history of momentous events, from Martin Luther’s 95 Theses to the Scientific Revolution to Latin American liberation theology. Professor Worthen is a marvelous storyteller, and brings history to life through the stories of people across history—scientists and theologians, revolutionaries and social justice warriors, commentators and ordinary people living out the great drama of Christian history. This is a magisterial course, and a must-have for students of history and religion.

Genres: History, Religion, Audiobook, Christianity, Nonfiction, Christian

Unknown Binding

About the author

Molly Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history.

Reviews

[Ivy-Mabel Fling · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent course covering the Middle Ages to the present, including the development of Christianity in Asia and Africa (as well as the West). Useful for people wanting facts rather than opinions.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Worthen did an outstanding job with this. She deserves an immense level of praise for being fair, impartial, and not swaying one way or another when covering the history of Christianity. In a world where the vast majority of everything has an agenda and favors one particular side over another, she truly remained neutral on this topic and for that I had to give her 5 stars.

Whether you are an Atheist (or pick any other religious denomination) who actively speaks against the Christian Church, or you dedicate your entire life to God, go to church every Sunday, you read the bible everyday, (you get the point),... Christian history has a very, very dark side to say it in a very kind and gentle way.

1500's:
Corruption, political involvement, aggressive accumulation of worldly wealth, gruesome public executions, forced conversion, slavery, systematic and strategic destruction of the Native American religions (honestly... pretty much any other religion other than those of the 'true believers), and the 'witch wars' aka the oppression and the persecution of women.

1600-1700's:
Hundreds of years of using God as a means to pull the strings of wealth, gain power, writing the rule book for their people. Man creating their own versions of the word of God for their own personal agendas. This created so many variations of Christianity, it's difficult to even keep track of them all... but the bottom line is that they are created by man and tailored to fit their culture, ideas, so on.

A quote from Dr. Worthen: "No other religion in the world has spilt more blood than Christianity has."

One thing I found very interesting towards the end, was how she compared modern day Islamic Extremists (al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Taliban, etc.) to ancient Christianity. This was a very compelling lecture that I am sure that if most die hard Christians (who want to turn a blind eye to the 1500-1700's) who made it to this point, would probably find this portion to be too much and they would quit here.

She wraps up everything how Christianity becomes a form of entertainment with televangelists, movies, and how it has evolved into the mega-church, aka a business that is driven by financial gain and how a person who speaks once a week provides for a family of 4, drives an expensive vehicle, and lives life larger than so many others who are out there struggling.

So Dr. Molly Worthen has a PhD in Religious history and is actually a Christian faith practitioner. Again I praise her for having the courage of speaking the truth instead of candy coating things. Saying what happened in the past did happen, and not trying to ignore it and pretend that Christianity is the pure symbol of innocence and actually looking at the dark past and acknowledging it for what it is. Again I also highly commend her for saying that the mega-church system is wrong and highly predatory and preying upon people for their money using the 'word of God' to exploit these gains.

She closes out the book with a peaceful passage from within the bible (didn't write down which one) and a hopeful message to the world that Christianity should be about helping others, the community aspect it provides, and helping people fill the void that they have in their heart for purpose/what happens after death/explaining the unexplainable/and helping the human obsession with the 'end of the world' (aka the Apocalypse).

[Hank Pharis · Rating 3 out of 5]

(NOTE: I'm stingy with stars. For me 2 stars means a good book or a B. 3 stars means a very good book or a B+. 4 stars means an outstanding book or an A {only about 5% of the books I read merit 4 stars}. 5 stars means an all time favorite or an A+ {Only one of 400 or 500 books rates this!).

The great news is that I can listen to a book a day at work. The bad news is that I can’t keep up with decent reviews. So I’m going to give up for now and just rate them. I hope to come back to some of the most significant things I listen to and read them and then post a review.

Very fair. Almost objective. Therefore refreshing.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A summary of the history of Global Christianity since the reformation.

I am not unfamiliar with Christian history. But this audiobook lecture series (18 hours, 36 lectures) on the history of global Christianity since the reformation was well done. Starting with the pre-reformation and then quickly running through various aspects of the reformation, I still learned things in an area that I had a good background on.

Part of what I wanted from this was the global aspects that I have less background on. The overview of Eastern Orthodoxy in lecture 10 was excellent as was the overview of the church in the Russian revolution and Liberation theology in Latin America. By my count, there was really only nine lectures that were not US/European focused. These are the areas I was less familiar with and more interested in, although I am not unfamiliar with aspects that did get covered. I wish there was more non-US/Europe lectures.

The PDF that is included was very thorough. It was not an exact transcript but includes bullet points and a number of images from the lectures in 385 pages. There were also questions and suggested readings for each lecture.

I picked this up because it was Molly Worthen and I had enjoyed her book The Apostles of Reason, on the history of the Evangelical idea of authority. And because it was free as part of Audible's Plus Catalog (although it is cycling off the Plus program at the end of July.) I have listened to a number of good history of Christianity lectures, especially the ones by Phillip Carey. The lecture by Luke Timothy Johnson on Christianity to the reformation I think is supposed to be the other part of this history, but I did this second lecture was better.

[Tira DiYanni · Rating 3 out of 5]

PROS:
This book gave great snippets of information & overarching summaries of the different points in history.
- I appreciated some of the authors, insights or observations that felt unique to her personality.
-For the most part, I enjoyed her relaxed, personable writing style. This didn’t feel like a boring textbook, that’s for sure.
- even though Mormonism is not Christianity- I appreciated her inclusion of it. It was insightful to learn about.

CONS:
- many times she over-focused on insignificant people or sects/cults. Mind you, she’s covering a hundred years of history in one chapter… and she would ramble off for PAGES on people/cults that died off & didn’t play a huge role in history & give only a few paragraphs on really important figures.
- there are some vulgar details included that didn’t need to be talked about. One example was the testimony sayings about the devil during the witch trials. Completely unnecessary.
- even though this author is writing about Christian history, I could tell by the subtle tones of animosity & additional jibes that she was not a Christian. Just something to note bc it does effect the kind of information she chooses to elaborate on/not go into detail. It’s not a big deal, because every person will be biased when explaining history. I was also curious to hear a non-Christian’s perspective on history.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worthen paints the broad strokes of the history of Christianity as it started fracturing at the Reformation and the ways that it has splintered and grown since. She is careful with the historical context and the doctrinal differences, but highlights these thru stories about individuals. Showing the tensions of Christianity, scientists and theologians, revolutionaries and social justice warriors, the clergy and the lay communities.

Why I started this book: I love the Great Courses... so much knowledge and comfort when the world is spinning to fast for my head to keep up. I picked this course to see what scholars are saying about Christianity.

Why I finished it: Worthen does a great job of painting the history in broad strokes so that the listener has the historical context and the inherit doctrinal tensions; such as pacifism vs. warrior for Christ, faith vs. works, only one God vs. the Trinity, the social gospel vs. the kingdom of heaven. I also will be pondering the difference between original sin and collective sin in my personal study as I pray about how I can change the world, feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch by Molly Worthen is an interesting survey of relatively recent Christian history. Overall, the course is fine. There are a few editorial remarks that may grate on some people, particularly her characterization of the Christian Right in later lectures, but she does a pretty fair job. Probably the more problematic thing for Christians and their sympathizers about her lecture series is the editorial selection process, which often leaves her with more things to criticize. Overall, it gives a decidedly critical, social historical feel. Every now and then she engages in an anachronism as well, which can be mildly distracting. Though criticisms aside, if you're just looking to learn more about things, she does a very capable job of covering a lot of history. I just wish she was granted more room to explore aspects of Christianity that were not bound by a lot of the common pilgrimage points of social history.

82/100

[Kiki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christianity is a spiritual movement. One would expect a history of Christianity to cover the development of spiritual ideas within the broad tent of Christianity. So I assumed this course would cover new ideas and new denominations arising within Christianity over the last 500 years, as well as how Christianity altered when it was brought into new cultures during that time period.

That is not what this course is. Instead, it is a survey of history and politics as impacted by Christianity, and vice versa, over the last 500 years. Any new ideas or denominations were mentioned only in so far as they touched on the politics and social changes the professor was interested in.

That’s nice background information, but it’s not what Christianity is. We should learn about new sects like the Shakers and the Christian Scientists. We should also learn about how ancient sects, like the Ethiopian church and the Coptic church have adapted their faith in modern times. But these questions are either completely ignored or brushed past with barely a sentence. More attention was given to the fictional “Left Behind“ series than to many actual, living Christian faiths.

I gave it two stars instead of one, because I think it did a pretty good job at what it was trying to do. But I can’t give it more stars than that, because this really is not a history of Christianity. It’s a history of politics and social structures.

[Jane De vries · Rating 4 out of 5]

What were the Seventh Day Adventists? Or the Church in Africa or South America? How did the Methodists or Presbyterians start?

This is an excellent reference book for the history of Christianity which is a HUGE topic. One is only kidding oneself if he should think Christianity should not be part of school subjects because it clearly undergirds the timeframe of Western history. Not to mention music and art!

An almost "too much information" book but provides an introduction to the broad spectrum and evolution to the Christian Church.

Now on to a Jewish book!

[miremnao · Rating 4 out of 5]

The course and the book give a nice overview over peculiar and quite complicated history of the Christendom over the last five hundred years. I very much enjoyed the "scientific" i.e. professional style of narration as well as absence of any bias while staying well-disposed towards any of the denominations. The course is informative and not boring at all.

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really engaging look at the history of modern Christianity. The lecturer really seemed to know her stuff -- she got the stuff I already knew right, so I felt I could trust her with the stuff I didn't know. I felt like she was fair to all the various religious traditions she explored, and remained firmly in the historian's seat rather than slipping into the apologist's chair or the skeptic's den.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worthen does a competent job on this survey of Christianity since the Reformation. If you can't afford the Great Courses, you would be just as well served by listening to the Church History lectures on ItunesU from Reformed or Covenant Seminary.

[Terry Heller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic -- a comprehensive and entertaining survey. It works both on its own terms and as a jumping-off point for deeper reading on any of the dozens of subjects discussed in the course. Professor Worthen's narration is excellent, as well.

[Victoria Duffoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this on Audible. LOTS of history!

[Mark Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview, part of the Great Courses

[Tina Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thirty-two, thirty-minute lectures covering east, west, north, and south of the historical beginnings of Christianity told from a primarily neutral perspective. Professor Worthen is respectful in her discussion of the good, the bad, and the ugly, for which I was grateful. I wasn't looking for a sanitized or, on the other extreme, hostile retelling. She seems to find a good balance for curious minds!

She has since been interviewed more recently to discuss her conversion to Christianity after much research on the resurrection's historicity and discussions with Tim Keller.