剛看過數集BBC的基督教歷史，雖然有些地方較粗疏(如東方的教會，近代神學思想)，畢竟作者是歷史家非神學家，說大勢，仍值得回味思考。書沒看過。沒有背景認識的人看片時有些吃力，每集之後都叫人答 "What does it mean to be a Christian today?" 作者在教會背景中長大，父為英國Suffolk區牧師，耳濡目染下，仍存疑只稱己為"candid friend of Chrisitianity."
The history of Christianity has been the never-ending rebirth of a meeting with Jesus Christ, the resurrected Son of God.
For some, like the Oriental and Orthodox Churches, the meeting has been through ritual, tradition or the inner life of the mystic. For Western Catholics, through obedience to the Church. For the Protestant Churches, through the Bible. And it's the variety which is so remarkable in Christianity's journey.
It's reached into every continent and adapted to new cultures. That's the hallmark of a world religion.
If the history of the Church teaches us anything, it's that it has an exceptional knack for reinventing itself in the face of fresh dangers.
The modern world has plenty to throw at the Church - scepticism, freedom, choice.
But modernity can't escape the oldest questions at the heart of the messy business of being human - questions of right and wrong, purpose and meaning.
A wise old Dominican friar once reminded me of the words of St Thomas Aquinas.
"God is not the answer, he is the question." And as long as the Church goes on trying to ask the question, it will never die.
Remember that Christianity is a very young religion. It spans a mere 2,000 years out of 150,000 years of human history. It would be very surprising if it had already revealed all its secrets.
---- from BBC series narration, A History of Christianity (Oxford Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch - one of the world's leading historians - reveals the origins of Christianity and explores what it means to be a Christian.)
