Christian Thinking through the Ages by David Arnold (BaA 44-52)

David Arnold (BaA 44-52) has released a new book called Christian Thinking through the Ages and gave us the background behind the book.

As an elderly Old Blue, or ‘an old Old Blue’, as David calls himself, David was born in Hackney in 1933 and came to Christ’s Hospital in the autumn of 1944. At Christ’s Hospital he first encountered the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, each morning in chapel and each evening in house prayers. David gradually decided that he was a Christian. No sudden conversion, he simply preferred the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth to the reality of the immediate world around him and what he understood to be happening in the wider world. At the age of 14 David was baptised, confirmed and wend to communion for the first time on three successive days.

Through his life, David has continued as a member of the church of England, above all because he saw it, and still does to this day, as an institution dedicated to keeping alive the things concerning Jesus.

It was not until David went to university in 1954, that he became aware of Christians of other traditions than the Church of England. He met both Roman Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals.

David’s own subject was history, but he was interested in theology and philosophy and tried to follow the way and seek the truth and the life represented by Jesus. David valued the guidance of the church on both faith and morals and at the same time valued even more the fact that it was possible to disagree. He valued the Old Testament as a collection of Hebrew writings which give an account of how ideas about God developed, and the New Testament for what it tell of Jesus of Nazareth and the ideas and way of looking at things which he taught.

David became a school master and for many years his main focus his wife and children and the teaching of history. Much of his teaching did however involve Christianity. Wherever David has lived, he has attended his local parish church and in the later years of the twentieth century, the then Vicar of Horsham, got him to teach a number of courses on church history, which culminated in 1999, when David retired at the age of 65, in getting him to teach a course on the history of the church. This developed into a book called In the Context of Eternity, which challenged the widespread view that ancient history came to an end in the fifth century and then nothing of significance happened until the Renaissance.

David’s new book, which was released on 12 December by Christian Alternative Books, has been read by both Lord Chartres, the former bishop of London, and Michael Turnbull, the former bishop of Durham, Richard  Chartres described it as ‘a lucid account of theological trends and controversies over the centuries’. Michael Turnbull wrote ‘the real excitement of reading Christian Thinking through the Ages comes from discovering that it is not what you expected. Arnold writes in such an easy and personal way that the reader becomes aware of being invited on a pilgrimage , where the journey is more important than the destination’

The book is dedicated to ‘the many Christians who regularly attend church or chapel but are unsure about what they really believe, to those who think of themselves as agnostic Christians, those who think of themselves as Christians in exile, and those of any faith or none who have realized that it is better to go on seeking truth rather than imagining that they have found it.’

You can find the book on sale here