The new nine-volume Cambridge History of Christianity will soon be complete, and it is shaping up to be the most authoritative account of the development of the faith over the past twenty centuries. Volume VIII exhibits all the strengths of the series as a whole. Each chapter is rich and concise, distilling a wealth of scholarship. The geographical coverage is exceptionally broad, reflecting the dramatic expansion of the faith beyond the West. The subtitle, World Christianities, highlights globalisation and proliferation. Co-edited by a Roman Catholic (Sheridan Gilley) and an evangelical Protestant (Brian Stanley), the volume is even-handed in its treatment of various traditions. (The history of Eastern Orthodoxy from 600 AD to the present has—to the regret of these editors—been hived off into a separate volume of its own).

As Sheridan Gilley notes in his introduction, the nineteenth century was ‘the best of times and the worst of times’ for Christianity. This was the era that witnessed ‘the secularisation of the European mind’ (Owen Chadwick) or ‘God’s Funeral’ (A. N. Wilson). Yet it was also an age of Christian revival and expansion: Christianity’s ‘Great Century’ (K. S. Latourette). Christopher Bayly, in his landmark work, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (Blackwell, 2004), argues, ‘the great religions staged a remarkable resurgence after 1815’. World Christianities reinforces that conclusion, though it does not neglect the familiar evidence of crisis and decline.

‘Part I: Christianity and Modernity’ contains panoramic essays on major themes: the papacy, theology, the free churches, Catholic revivalism, women preachers and female religious orders, church architecture, art, music and literature, Christian social thought, the sciences and biblical criticism.

‘Part II: The Churches and National Identities’ provides national and regional surveys for most of Europe and the Americas. These chapters are excellent on the relationship between church and state, faith and national identity, and they highlight both the durability of the Christian nation ideal, and the erosion of Western Christendom.

‘Part III: The Expansion of Christianity’ is the most innovative and revealing. Chapters on African-American Christianity, missions and antislavery, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia, and Africa communicate the findings of a new wave of research on the global diffusion of the faith, especially in its Evangelical and Pietist forms. Indeed, one welcome feature of the volume as a whole is the generous coverage given to Evangelicalism, not least in essays by David Bebbington, John Wolffe, Mark Noll, and Brian Stanley (contributors to IVP’s outstanding ‘History of Evangelicalism’ series).

I do, however, have one significant complaint. In focusing on the cultural and political impact of religion, World Christianities rather neglects the fundamental practices of the Christian faith. Reading it is like using Google Earth: the spectacular aerial overviews are a revelation, but one is left wondering about what goes on inside the buildings. The recent historiographical fashion for the study of ‘lived religion’ and ‘religion in practice’ is little in evidence here. Remarkably, there is no index entry for either prayer or preaching, partly because the index is very sketchy, but also because prayer and preaching are rather marginalised. There are lively descriptions of the new Catholic piety, African-American worship, and Evangelical revivals, but in general the volume is better on politics than on piety, on elites than on ordinary believers. For better and for worse, this is a traditional Cambridge History.

That said, The Cambridge History of Christianity is an essential purchase for all good libraries, especially for theological colleges. Although the cost will deter individual buyers, it will be widely consulted by scholars and students of church history. There are rival series in this field, but none can match this one for reliability, balance, comprehensiveness, and cutting-edge scholarship.

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