The First Eight Centuries: From Pentecost through the Rise of Islam by Donald Fairbairn (Zondervan, 2021, 405 pages)
There are a few predictable approaches in Western Protestant discussions of the history of Christianity. The first is to metaphorically head to Western Europe as if that is the only direction in which the faith expanded. The other is to dismiss many of the developments in the non-Western church as having very little to say to us as modern believers. Both tendencies are strongly challenged by Donald Fairbairn in ‘The Global Church – The First Eight Centuries: From Pentecost through the Rise of Islam’. His treatment of early Christianity goes east and south as much as it goes west. In the process he introduces us to the early church in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Persian Empire. This part of the church was, of course, deeply impacted by the rise of Islam. The Islamic conquest, and its consequences, is therefore a major part of Fairbairn’s analysis. In fact, it is the focus of the entire second part of the book. In the process he makes a major contribution to our understanding of the rise of Islam by discussing it from a distinctly Christian perspective. He also highlights some important lessons that we can learn from this part of the history of the global church. The second tendency that Fairbairn challenges is the Protestant impulse to simply dismiss large parts of non-Western church history as essentially irrelevant. Almost every chapter ends with what Protestants can learn from what has been discussed, even when it comes to events or doctrines that we may deeply disagree with. This is, therefore, a book that actively encourages us to reflect on, and process, what we are reading. This book is highly recommended, especially for those who already have a good understanding of Christian history, as it will help them to ‘think outside the box’ by broadening their understanding of what we can learn from the history of the global church.
