Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity

The book is written in a Readers Digest condensed version style. The content is primarily editoralizing while skimming over the history. There are large jumps between turning points that lacks background going into the next turning point. Key turning points are missing, with other important turning points being glossed over, while less important turning points receive undue coverage. I had high expectations based on reviews... Read Full Review

Christians believe that God is a God of history. Events, councils, decisions, all involving people, are part of God's continuing revelation through history. This book allows the reader to see Christianity's history since the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. with the pushing of the early church from its Jewish roots into the surrounding Roman world to events that are occurring around us today. Christians who do not know their... Read Full Review

With this book, Mark Noll provides an introductory-level study of Christian history - NOT as a sweeping movement over thousands of years (which many larger, more ambitious works encompass), but as a series of turning points - events that changed the way Christianity perceived itself, and was perceived by the world. In this way, a student can gain a quick introduction to many of the issues that have faced Christianity throughout... Read Full Review

Dr. Noll's reason for organizing church history around a series of "turning points" arose from his need to have a framework for teaching the history of Christianity to diverse groups. The author selects twelve defining moments in church history and uses them as entry points into the sweeping and potentially overwhelming events of the two-thousand-year history of the Christian Church. He hopes this method will bring order... Read Full Review

In my opinion, Mark Noll is the foremost (American) church historian of our generation. In a series of books, he has set forth biblically-grounded and scholarly rigorous treatment of a vast range of theological and historical issues. Almost single handedly he is has reversed the dearth of evangelical intellectualism.Turning Points is one of Noll's most accessible books. Not a dry scholarly treatise, but rather a lively and... Read Full Review