PublishedPenguin, April 2014 |
ISBN9780241952320 |
FormatSoftcover, 352 pages |
Dimensions19.8cm × 12.9cm × 2cm |
Silence shows the history of Christianity in a fresh and fascinating new light.
This book unravels a polyphony of silences from the history of Christianity and beyond. MacCulloch considers Judaeo-Christian borrowings from Greek explorations of the divine, and the silences which were a feature of Jesus's brief ministry. Besides prayer and contemplation, there are shame and evasion; careless and purposeful forgetting.
Many deliberate silences are revealed- the forgetting of histories inconvenient to later Church authorities, and Christianity's problems in dealing honestly with sexuality. Behind all this is the silence of God. In a deeply personal conclusion, MacCulloch brings a message of optimism for those still seeking God beyond the clamour of over-confident certainties.