An Introduction to Christianity

Christianity `has never been one thing' (406) and therefore, a book about Christianity has to be both about its many facets, and about its success and failure (1). The introduction provides the thesis of the book: `It focuses on the changing relations between Christianity and society and looks, in particular, at the ways in which Christianity has related to power' (1). Woodhead's book is a study of religion in its social locatedness; a study of Christianity's `force relations' (Foucault). Christian faith, whatever else it might be, is a form of power; it is a form of religious, social, ideological, cultural, pastoral, and personal power. The author adds a further clarification to her thesis-statement, `Above all, the book considers Christian history in terms of two competing models of power-power from on high and power from below-and the consequences of the church's tendency to favour the former over the latter' (1). There seems to be two parallel themes next to Woodhead's main thesis. The first is Woodhead's analysis of voluntarist/non-voluntarist forms of Christianity. The studied opposites are `from on high/non-voluntarist/male' and `from below/voluntarist/female.' The second parallel theme is the gradual subjectivization of the Christian religion. This topic shows up in the second part of the book, which studies the modern period of the church history. In Woodhead's own words, her book provides `a thematisation of history' rather than a mere `compendium of facts' (3-4). Precisely because her book is a `thematisation of history,' one wonders whether the comprehensive title An Introduction to Christianity is completely justified.