Christendom

Christendom

Peter Heather

Knopf. 736 pp.

A little more difficult to plow through than similar histories written by, say, Diarmaid MacCulloch or Justo Gonzalez. Interesting to me was the emphasis Heather gives here to the interplay between church and state as the primary reason for Christianity's spread between the time of Constantine and the Fourth Lateran Council. And, sure, I get it. A lot of people probably did convert to the new faith in order to--as they say--"get along" and to "go along". That's an important point to make, which Heather does . . . repeatedly. Do I agree? Maybe. For the most part. And Heather doesn't entirely discount the idea that some may have converted for mostly spiritual reasons. 

So, all-in-all, I'd say this is fair treatment of the subject, even from someone who is a self-professed agnostic.