The long-awaited second volume of Orbis's History of the World Christian Movement does not disappoint in terms of its overall scope, approach, and contents. Volume 1, covering up to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, was published in 2001 after years of collaboration among a sizable group of worldwide scholars from multiple disciplines. After continuing consultation and concerted effort while carrying their other weighty responsibilities, Dale Irvin (New York Theological Seminary) and Scott Sunquist (now Fuller Theological Seminary) have managed to compile a continuing account of the complex development of Christianity in a dizzying array of contexts all over the world. The authors and publisher are to be highly commended for the vision and ongoing production of a much-needed history of the world Christian movement that is presented, as much as possible, within a worldwide framework.
Buttressed by the large-scale collaboration that accompanies the authors' own extensive experience and research, the worldwide and interdisciplinary approach of this project is what sets it apart from other attempts to produce a worldwide (or “global”) Christian history. Key elements that Irvin and Sunquist have incorporated to make this volume, like the previous one, a genuinely world Christian history include a multi-imperial, multiregional, and multinational stage for the Christian movement; a nonadvocating multiconfessional approach that acknowledges the emergence of new ecclesiastical traditions within particular historical contexts; serious consideration of all contexts' pre-Christian realities that shape how Christianity develops; and an interdisciplinary approach that rightly frames Christianity as a concrete, living movement in constant interaction with contextual realities.
This volume concludes with the year 1800, despite initial plans to cover at least to 1900, for prudent reasons explained in the introduction. One slight gaffe resulting from this editorial change is the unfulfilled promise (at least until the book's next printing) in the introduction of an epilogue that would have pointed the way forward. The upside of the book's abrupt ending is that anticipation is heightened all the more for the soon-to-appear, geographically synthesized volume 3, which will complete, at least for the foreseeable future, a work that should prove invaluable for all students of Christian history.
Pedagogically, the readable prose and conscious elimination of reference notes make the book readily accessible to undergraduates. Each chapter ends with suggested readings (that substitute for a bibliography) for further study and possible classroom discussion. Not mentioned in the book is a supplementary website for both volume 1 and volume 2, http://hwcmweb.org. While needing a bit of an update, the easy-to-navigate web pages provide images, audio clips, maps, charts, and writings that are organized by book chapter, by region, and on a timeline—with a helpful glossary to boot. Readers can also anticipate a companion volume similar to John W. Coakley's Readings in World Christian History, which Orbis published three years after volume 1.
If you do not have access to this volume (along with the first one) for yourself and those whom you serve, make haste to get your hands on a copy somehow.
