The Cambridge History of Christianity

Abstract

ticulating that faith and acting it out in ritual and ethics in quite different fashions» 1. «Heresy» indeed usually appears in quotation marks-except in the volume on the years 1815-1914 where one of the editors dispenses with the quotation marks when describing some branches of Catholic Modernism as heretical 2. In most of the volumes, movements branded as heretical receive sympathetic treatment. And the use of «World» reflects another leitmotiv, namely an emphasis on Christianity's global reach and regional diversity. Inevitably the volume on the 20 th century includes two chapters devoted exclusively to Latin America, one to the Caribbean, six to Africa and Asia, and one to Oceania, as well as the six devoted exclusively to Europe and North America. But the volume on the years c.300-600 emphasises the fact that Christianity reached as far east as China and as far south as Ethiopia in that period. Editors were also required to focus on the experiences of the «ordinary Christian» and to consider the social and cultural impact of Christianity as broadly as possible. Another required field was the relationship of Christianity with other faiths or, in more recent times, with secularism and atheism. One major strategic decision by the steering group was to treat Eastern Christianity from the 12 th century to the present day in a separate volume, while the other volumes covering this period would concentrate on Western Christianity and those forms of Christianity stemming from it. Within this general framework editors were free to decide which themes to highlight and which kinds of historian to choose as collaborators. Margaret Mitchell and Frances Young in Origins to Constantine gave more space than the other editors to theology, a major part of the volume being entitled «The Shaping of Christian Theology». Frederick Norris and Augustine Casiday edited Constantine to c.600. They placed special emphasis on the geographical spread of Christianity in that period and on the gradualness of the process by which what became «Christendom» was christianised. Early Medieval Christianity, c.600-c.1100, edited by Julia Smith and Thomas Noble, gave special attention to «Christianity as Lived Experience», including «Birth and Death», «Last Things» and «Gender and the Body». This volume benefited from the fact that Noble, who is based at Notre Dame, the famous Catholic university in Indiana, was able to obtain funding from his university for a conference of his authors, whereas contributors to the other volumes were to a large degree working on their own. Christianity in Western Europe, c.1100-c.1500, edited by Miri Rubin and Walter Simon, highlighted «The Erection of Boundaries», including those between men and women and between heaven and hell, but more especially between Catholic Christianity and those outside, in