The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in The Middle East, Africa, and Asia-and How It Died

A revealing study on the surprising and little-known story about the earliest, largest, and most influential Christian churches east of Rome. Jenkins explores how these communities became extinct after 1,000 years as the dominant Christian expression. He further demonstrates how those "lost era" believers shaped certain Muslim and Christian practices we know today. 336 pages, hardcover from HarperOne.

In this groundbreaking book, renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins offers a lost history, revealing that, for centuries, Christianity's center was actually in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with significant communities extending as far as China. The Lost History of Christianity unveils a vast and forgotten network of the world's largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—died.

Jenkins takes a stand against current scholars who assert that variant, alternative Christianities disappeared in the fourth and fifth centuries on the heels of a newly formed hierarchy under Constantine, intent on crushing unorthodox views. In reality, Jenkins says, the largest churches in the world were the “heretics” who lost the orthodoxy battles. These so-called heretics were in fact the most influential Christian groups throughout Asia, and their influence lasted an additional one thousand years beyond their supposed demise.

Jenkins offers a new lens through which to view our world today, including the current conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Without this lost history, we lack an important element for understanding our collective religious past. By understanding the forgotten catastrophe that befell Christianity, we can appreciate the surprising new births that are occurring in our own time, once again making Christianity a true world religion.

Revisionist history is always great fun, and never more so than when it is persuasively and cogently argued. Jenkins, the Penn State history professor whose book The Next Christendom made waves several years ago, argues that it's not exactly a new thing that Christianity is making terrific inroads in Asia and Africa. A thousand years ago, those continents were more Christian than Europe, and Asian Christianity in particular was the locus of tremendous innovations in mysticism, monasticism, theology and secular knowledge. The little-told story of Christianity's decline in those two continents—hastened by Mongol invasions, the rise of Islam and Buddhism, and internecine quarrels—is sensitively and imaginatively rendered. Jenkins sometimes challenges the assertions of other scholars, including Karen Armstrong and Elaine Pagels, but provides compelling evidence for his views. The book is marvelously accessible for the lay reader and replete with fascinating details to help personalize the ambitious sweep of global history Jenkins undertakes. This is an important counterweight to previous histories that have focused almost exclusively on Christianity in the West. (Nov.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

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Reviewed by Dr. Cahyana E. Purnama, MA (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), July 13, 2009

In my opinion, I do not agree to the exclamation that "... The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in The Middle East, Africa, and Asia-and How It Died." As an Asian by blood and lives almost totally in Asian context, I have learned that Christianity in Asia and Africa have never dead. So far, as I had also discussed with fellows in Program for Theology and Cultures in Asia (PTCA), it was true that Christianity in most of those mentioned area there had been decreased. However, there have still lived some root of Christianity in its specific context. For example, in the island of Java, up to present time there have blossomed idea that the Javanese's character was established in the year of 78 AD by a prominent person called Ajisaka (means: Someone who come from the highest). Besides, for every time the Javanese people want to raise a special prayer for their family member that had dead, especially in the 3rd, 7th, 40th and 100th and 1000th day, they have used to make a symbol of small hill (made of rice) with a cross (made of red chilly) and shared a boiled cock that was sliced with the hand of leader and says: Let's eat in commemorate of our life saving prayer with th late one..." So, here I want to encourage another follow study about the unique way of basic Christian life have (might be) lived in every ethnical life-setting in the continent of Asia and Africa. It will be another amazing publication!

Reviewed by Antoine Haddad (Beirut,), July 03, 2009

Being a middle Easterner Christian, this book was revealing to me. I always wondered what happened to christianity , which was predominant in this region, that it has become almos extint. i would have loved to see more details and analysis of the fearful fate of Christians in the twentieh and beginning of the 21st century and the role of the west in causing and allowing it. Are we doomed? i believe this book is a must for seminary studets

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