A People’s History Of Christianity: The Other Side Of The Story, by Diana Butler Bass

Anyone who can look at the absolute trash of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History Of The United States” and think that this deserves to be the inspiration for a supposed “history” on progressive Christianity deserves all of the savage press they are bound to receive from anyone who has not partaken of the leftist kool-aid that is popular among people of that ilk. The author finds it necessary to write an alternative history of Christianity that, in her mistaken mind at least, focuses on ordinary people and offers a vision of progress or at least progressive people throughout various eras of church history. Yet this ideal of a “progressive Christianity” is strongly at odds with biblical religion as a whole, which is about a God in whom there is no shadow of turning, and who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, something that Progressives have no understanding of. If we are to be in a state of continual growth ourselves as we seek to become perfect as God is perfect, the target we are aiming at does not change, and the author seems unable to grasp the contrast between human beings who are called to continuous improvement towards a fixed end with an approach that constantly seeks to change the goalposts to whatever the current thing is that characterizes the Progressive approach to life.

The fundamental flaw of this book is that it seeks to promote and demonstrate a view of love that is divorced from an understanding of God’s law. It is understanding what holiness means and what obedience is owed to God the Father and Jesus Christ that informs us as to how we are to be just to others. Without a firm basis in morality–and this author has none–the love that the author promotes is nothing than the warm and fuzzy feeling inside of her heart and her own biased viewpoint at what it means not to murder and to be generous and kind to others. Whatever the virtues of warmth and fuzziness, they are not justice, nor are they love. The author’s insistence on living according to wuv rather than biblical love informs her gross misunderstanding of Christianity at all eras of its history. Moreover, by pointing to an ecumenical view of Protestantism that celebrates in progressive revelation as well as syncretism with the heathen ways all around us, is itself a celebration of the neo-paganism that makes the contemporary age so dangerous to truth and its proclamation. The author consistently demonstrates herself as part of the problem rather than part of the solution, reveling in supporting marginal figures who were rebellious against the authority of their time without ever coming to grips with the genuine marginality of being a true believer according to biblical standards who lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, not merely those which make one trendy and progressive.

This book is more than 300 pages long and is divided into five parts and thirteen chapters. The author begins with an introduction that looks at the period after Christ, contrasting the usual story of Christian history with her own ideas. The first part of the book then examines the period between 100 and 500 (leaving out, it should be noted, the record of the early church recorded in scripture). First, the author explores her view of Christianity as a way of life (1), before discussing devotion as the love of God (2) and the ethics of loving one’s neighbor (3). This is followed by a look at the symbol of the cathedral for the medieval church from 500 to 1450 AD. In this section of the book the author explores Christianity as spiritual architecture (4), the devotion of paradise restored (5), and the ethics of determining who is our neighbor (6). After this comes a discussion of the Word as the symbol of Reformation Christianity from 1450 to 1650. This part of the book explores Christianity as living words (7), the devotion of the speaking of faith (8), and the ethics of walking the talk (9). The quest of modern Christianity from 1650 to 1945 takes up the next part of the book. This part of the book contains a discussion of Christianity as a quest for truth (10), the devotion of the quest for light (11), and the ethics of the quest for God’s kingdom on earth (12), that perennial but elusive utopian goal of Progressives. The last part of the book explores the river of contemporary Christianity since 1945 (13), before the author finishes the book with an epilogue, acknowledgements, notes and an index.