Review: a summary of Christian History

reviewed by T. C. Pinckney                                                                      Vol. XX, No. 6, June/July 2007

This third edition, 2005, is by Dr. Robert A. Baker, longtime professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and John M. Landers, one of Baker's former students. The first edition appeared in 1959 and was by Baker alone. He died in 1992 but had asked Landers to produce a revised edition, which was published in 1994. Landers has added more helps in this edition.

The book is in fact what its title claims, a summary of Christian history, designed for beginning students or others interested in the broad sweep of Christian development through the centuries. The text is clear and straightforward with multisyllabic theological terms avoided where feasible.

Several useful helps clarify the text. There are frequent boxes providing chronologies of major events during the era being discussed. Also, there are numerous maps that give the reader a picture of the events. The one before me as I type this is the route of the First Crusade from central Europe to Jerusalem. A third help is the pictures of people and places discussed in the text, such as the Roman Forum, Charlemagne, Luther, Calvin, and William Carey. Finally, virtually every chapter has excerpts from one or more documents of the time.

My only negative re the book is the frequent editorial errors ranging from minor spelling problems to printing “Protestant” where it should read “Catholic” (p. 284), to the misnumbering and misplacement of pp. 148 and 149. However, these are but minor annoyances.

I strongly recommend Robert A. Baker & John M. Landers, a summary of Christian History (Broadman & Holman, 2005) 445 pp.