"A History of Christianity" is a massive historical overview. A thousand pages depicting the long history of Christianity from its cultural roots in ancient Judaism and classical civilizations all the way to our day and age. For this reason whatever thoughts I can compose here cannot summarize it, the vast multitude of subjects and ideas would render that task futile. Rather, I'll discuss a couple of observations, ones I found among the most interesting and enlightening.
One such observation that I found fascinating was the relationship between Christianity and earthly political power. Christianity's very conception of theological orthodoxy was molded by its partnership with Roman imperial authority, the Emperor present in ecumenical councils and subsequently lending his violent military power to the enforcement of the resulting conclusion of the council. When Julian attempted to undermine the influence Christianity amassed for itself, he did not pursue the sort of persecutions such as were under Diocletian and Galerius, but rather just let the church remain without an enforcer of orthodoxy - the church would, thusly Julian assumed perhaps justly, disintegrate into endless internal bickerings that would allow for a re-emergence of pagan worship. This relationship to power was of course later conceptualized, re-conceptualized, and argued over the centuries with fundamentally different approached by the reformed (mostly focused on separate authorities), the Lutherans (mostly focused on conformity to magisterial authority) and Anglicans and Catholics (the latter including a struggle of different views. The "Syllabus of Errors" to this day provides a core for integralists in the church, yet nevertheless the trend seems to skew towards a liberal toleration).
Another fascinating observation, in my perspective, was how recent some developments were, that we have come to see as eternal or ever-present within Christianity and the Church. One remarkable thing I've come to learn is that only after a thousand years of Christianity did marriage become a sacrament, with it prior being of a mostly communal and social nature. Also of interest was the considerable chaos in terms of authority, resulting in a unique pluralism (to an extent) in the Latin Church - a sort of vague idea of the Church was replaced with stricter conceptions only during the 16th century with the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and the process of confessionalization experienced in them - in which catechisms and the adherence to them became of increasing importance. Likewise the current Catholic Church's Papal Monarchy, which although an idea spanning a thousand years, it took a very lengthy time to actually become what it is today - ultramontanism was by no means the default throughout the centuries, only reaching its current dominance in the 19th Century.
One final observation I'll write about in this post is the reciprocal relationship between Christianity and philosophy. I have come to understand that the very conceptions Christianity utilizes are predicated on Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical traditions. The eucharistic transubstantiation, for example, would make little sense without the tools of "essence" and "accident" provided by the Aristotelian tradition (and in the context of Christianity, made official doctrine following the works of St. Thomas Aquinas).
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