I just noticed this is a 'Christian Only' section, go ahead and move this over to a general history forum if you would, thanks.
I have been reading The Lost History of Christianity The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died by Philip Jenkins. It's a fascinating book, but i has me wondering: why do most Christians seem opaquely ignorant of the Oriental church? They might know the names of some places (but even with Iran on the news, how many can locate Persia on a map?) and acknowledge the Jesus is said to have preached in Roman Palestine, but there is what seems to be an almost deliberate silence on the subject. I hardly ever hear historians of ancient Christianity talk about anything except the Roman and Greek churches unless they're picking on heresies. There is no acknowledgement or seeming interest at all in the fact that Christianity is an Eastern religion and that it is only fairly late that the Western church surpassed the Eastern church. Oriental Christianity was thriving as far afield as China, but judging from most Biblical scholars (whether Conservative or liberal) you'd think that Christianity was a Western creation like Rome's pseudo-Mithraism.
I have been reading The Lost History of Christianity The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died by Philip Jenkins. It's a fascinating book, but i has me wondering: why do most Christians seem opaquely ignorant of the Oriental church? They might know the names of some places (but even with Iran on the news, how many can locate Persia on a map?) and acknowledge the Jesus is said to have preached in Roman Palestine, but there is what seems to be an almost deliberate silence on the subject. I hardly ever hear historians of ancient Christianity talk about anything except the Roman and Greek churches unless they're picking on heresies. There is no acknowledgement or seeming interest at all in the fact that Christianity is an Eastern religion and that it is only fairly late that the Western church surpassed the Eastern church. Oriental Christianity was thriving as far afield as China, but judging from most Biblical scholars (whether Conservative or liberal) you'd think that Christianity was a Western creation like Rome's pseudo-Mithraism.
