A History of Christianity (2009) BBC

Catholicism: The Unpredictable Rise of Rome

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch's grandfather was a devout pillar of the local Anglican church and felt that any dabbling in Catholicism was liable to pollute the English way of life. But now Professor's grandfather isn't around to stop him exploring the extraordinary and unpredictable rise of the Roman Catholic Church.

Over one billion Christians look to Rome, more than half of all Christians on the planet. But how did a small Jewish sect from the backwoods of 1st-century Palestine, which preached humility and the virtue of poverty, become the established religion of western Europe - wealthy, powerful and expecting unfailing obedience from the faithful?

Amongst the surprising revelations, MacCulloch tells how confession was invented by monks on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, and how the Crusades gave Britain the university system.

Above all, it is a story of what can be achieved when you have friends in high places.

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch - one of the world's leading historians - reveals the origins of Christianity and explores what it means to be a Christian. A History Of Christianity is a major new six-part religious series, presented by Diarmaid MacCulloch - one of the world's leading historians and Professor of History of the Church and Fellow at St Cross College Oxford. This fascinating series will reveal the true origins of Christianity and delve into what it means to be a Christian. Intelligent, thought-provoking and magisterial in its scope the series will reveal how a small Jewish sect that preached humility became the biggest religion in the world. Most Christian histories start with St Paul's mission to Rome, but Diarmaid MacCulloch argues that the first Christianity stayed much closer to its Middle-Eastern roots.

The six-part BBC TV series A History of Christianity is an original and authoritative work presented by one of the world’s leading historians, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church and Fellow at St Cross College, Oxford   ⁴, a Fellow of the British Academy   ⁵ and a Whitbread Award winner. His Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 won the 2004 National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

Brimming with new insights, this series will reveal the true origins of Christianity, explore the sheer diversity of its churches, help viewers understand the essence of the different denominations, and explain how and why it’s become the biggest religion in the world.

Most Christian histories start with St Paul’s mission to Rome, but in the first episode on the Oriental Churches, MacCulloch argues that’s a mistake because the first Christianity stayed much closer to its middle-eastern roots. But for an accident of history – namely, the rise of Islam – the headquarters of Christianity might well have been Baghdad rather than Rome.

In later episodes, he explores how a small Jewish sect of the poor and the dispossessed, which preached love and humility, became the Catholic Church - a religion of riches, war and empire, inspiring awe and fear in equal measure. He also tells the remarkable story of the Orthodox Church which now flourishes in Greece and Russia – after surviving attacks by Catholic Crusaders, Muslim armies, Russian tyrants and Soviet Communists.

In the fourth and fifth episodes MacCulloch explains the emergence of the Protestant Reformation and the part played by Evangelical Churches in exporting Christianity to all four corners of the earth.

In the final episode, MacCulloch takes a closer look at Western Christianity in the Modern Period. Its distinctive feature is scepticism and a tendency to doubt, which has transformed both Western culture and Christian faith. Where did that change come from? Equally importantly, where does Christianity go next?

MacCulloch will also delve deep into what it means to be a Christian - what makes a Catholic different from an Orthodox, a Protestant or a Pentecostalist? Diarmaid MacCulloch’s series is an engaging, stimulating and credible guide to understanding why the world we live in today is the way it is – he’ll throw a surprising new light on the so-called clash of civilisations, explain why Europe seems to have given up on Christianity, and show how the religion’s centre of gravity – once in Jerusalem, then Rome and later Spain – is now in sub-Saharan Africa, in Timbuktu.

 

Source: BBC and www.open2.net