Product Description

This book is a popular overview and study guide to the history of the Catholic Church. Written for non-scholarly readers with little historical background, it includes descriptions of society in different historical eras in order to make the history of the Church more understandable. The book explains important doctrinal, spiritual, and historical questions and developments. It identifies many popular saints and includes interesting historical characters.

Catholics seeking a deeper spiritual life and a closer relationship with God will find many helpful ideas to trust God’s love and care for them. The story of how the Church survived earlier trials will encourage people struggling with current challenges in the Church or discouraged by difficulties in their own lives.

This book is useful in RCIA and religious education classes, for personal study, Catholic high school or college classes, or discussion groups.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #536293 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

From the Publisher
Martha Rasmussen received a Master’s Degree in Medieval History from the University of Colorado. She has taught in private and parochial schools.

Customer Reviews

Very good overview of Church History
I recently finished reading this book. Having not read much for the past few years, I've started to find time to read, specifically to learn more about my faith.

One confusing aspect has always been the history of the Catholic Church. Discussions end up about how the Catholic Church did this or that which seperated it from the true teachings of the Apostles and Christ.

This book is wonderfully easy to read. It delivers on the promise of easy to read for the non-scholarly. It is organized into chapters with different periods and main themes of those periods. The chapters overlap somewhat, enough to bring together common themes or how various aspects of history are connected. Each chapter has several subtopics, with discussion questions at the end and short discription of saint related to the topic of the chapter.

I expect this book can be useful to me as an easy reference. Each chapter outlines what is dicussed and is highlighted on the edge with dark paper. As mentioned earlier, it provides enough background from other chapters to make each chapter stand on its own, especially after reading through once.

I also appreciate learning of specific miracles and how they directly affected the local people of that time.

I recommend this book, especially for the "non-scholoarly" or those that are not history buffs.

Orthodox and fair
We've been spending time with Martha Rasmussen's The Catholic Church: The First 2,000 Years. Each of its fourteen chapters is broken down into four-five page sections that are ideal for family reading hour. These sections are followed by a list of key terms and a handful of useful discussion questions. The text is written for students at the middle school-age level, but my seven-year-old has been enjoying it with his older brothers and sisters. Rasmussen covers all the major eras, from the Apostles through the turbulent times that followed Vatican II. She concludes with a special chapter devoted to Catholics in America. The author is both orthodox and fair; one will not find her pushing an agenda contrary to Church teaching or whitewashing the sins and errors of Catholics. Highly recommended.