First published: Joint Church Press: Methodist Recorder, Baptist Times, Church Times, Church of England Newspaper, 29 August 2002
We have run features before on the 'growth', 'variety', and 'the best', of Christian software and many times covered bible study packages (these features are available online, see the links at the end). Indeed, there are now around 300 Christian mainstream Christian software titles not to mention the background material offered by a further 200 Jewish titles and numerous historical reference CD-Roms covering archaeology and bible-period history. In fact, it is to history that we will turn in this article with a brief examination of the array of church history and historical Christian literature titles available.
I have always been fascinated by history and began collecting relevant books, for example an extensive collection on Napoleon and Wellington, from an early age. Turning, later, to theological studies I was presented with a whole new subject area, that of religious and church history. As a student I began collecting the works of the 39 volume Early Church Fathers, buying them one at a time second-hand for about £10 a time. The millions of words of text would have kept any bibliophile going for a few years. Eventually, I chanced upon an index volume to the whole set but ran out of thumbs and lacked a large enough lap to make good use of it when referencing several volumes at once. Imagine the joy and simultaneous irritation when after collecting half the set and having spent nearly £200 along comes a CD with the whole set, fully indexed, and for many times less than the cost of the printed series, new or second-hand. In fact several versions are available including the Logos Library System Early Church Fathers (£199), STEP Anti Nicene Fathers (£69), and the AGES Software Master Christian Library (from £43). The AGES version also includes up to 500 other books. For example, works by Philo, Josephus, Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, Wesley, Finney, Moody, Edwards, Edersheim, and more. An even more comprehensive version of this title is available as a DVD (£234) containing well over 1000 books including the Reformation History Library and the entire collections of Spurgeon, Calvin, Arthur Pink, John Owen, and John Gill, all of which are also available separately (from £24 to £79).
A more specialist collection, but nonetheless inexpensive way of getting hold of rare works on the holiness movement from the first Methodists through to the early 20th century, is FLB Software's Holiness Classics. This contains 55 great holiness classics including: sermons from John Wesley, the Keswick Convention (e.g., J.B.Meyer and G. Campbell-Morgan) and Samuel Chadwick, former editor of the Methodist paper The Joyful News and principal of the Cliff College Evangelist's training center. In addition, there are rare works by Adam Clarke, A.M. Hills, Beverly Carradine, Abel Stevens, John Fletcher, Booth and all of the works of E.M.Bounds, principally on prayer. This CD will set you back £49 but is available half price when bought with Master Christian Library or some other titles.
Baptists are well served by either the works of Spurgeon (£46) or his eminent scholar predecessor John Gill. Gill’s 10 million word commentary on the Bible is available from AGES (£24) or as part of the Online Bible (£30) which also contains dozens of Bible versions, commentaries and biblical language lexicons, all integrated and linked together by hyperlinks.
Harmony Media's Welcome to the Catholic Church offers a useful multi-media presentation of the Catholic Church. It includes hundreds of Church Documents and Encyclicals, all the documents of Vatican II, as well as early, medieval and modern Catholic Church history. In total, more than £500 worth of books for just £79.
Between the early church and modern denominational churches lies the period of the Reformation. This is best served by the Reformation History Library 2 (£79), a fascinating collection of works including Calvin’s Institutes, and Luther’s 95 Theses. It also contains interesting titles that you are perhaps unlikely to have on your ecclesiastical bookshelf such as the History of the Scottish Nation, works by William Tyndale, and one whose title alone makes me want to read it: Hus the Heretic By Poggius The Papist!
Article by Jonathan Went (BMSoftware, NetResearcher.co.uk)
jon@bmsoftware.com
Jonathan Went runs BMSoftware, acts as a Net researcher and journalist, an IT consultant and web designer, and runs a correspondence Biblical Hebrew made easy course. He can be contacted by email (jon@bmsoftware.com) or by phone on 01603 667393.
BMSoftware and NetResearcher.co.uk are Christian software, web design and Net Journalism specialists.LINKS TO AUTHOR'S SITES
Web Hosting, Design & Promotion: www.bmsoftware.com/webdesign
Biblical and multilingual software: www.bmsoftware.com
Biblical Hebrew correspondence course: www.biblicalhebrew.com
Christian study courses, resources and articles: www.biblicalstudies.co.uk
Roots and Branches - the Hebraic Journal: www.rootsandbranchespress.com
Family Restoration Magazine: www.familyrestorationmagazine.org
Christian Comment: www.christiancomment.com
This article with its connecting links should be available online at:
www.bmsoftware.com/articles/churchhistorysoftware.htm - Previous related articles are also available online at:
www.bmsoftware.com/articles/christiansoftwaresurvey2001.htm
www.bmsoftware.com/articles/christiansoftwaresurvey2000.htm
www.bmsoftware.com/articles/christiansoftwaresurvey.htm
For other online articles of a software or internet nature see: www.bmsoftware.com/articles