Silence: a Christian history
Religion, Christianity
Human-narrated audio
Summary
The author explores the vital role of silence in the Christian story. How should one speak to God? Are our prayers more likely to be heard if we offer them quietly at home or loudly in church? How can we… really know if God is listening? From the earliest days, Christians have struggled with these questions. Their varied answers have defined the boundaries of Christian faith and established the language of our most intimate appeals for guidance or forgiveness. MacCulloch shows how Jesus chose to emphasize silence as an essential part of his message and how silence shaped the great medieval monastic communities of Europe. He also examines the darker forms of religious silence, from the church's embrace of slavery and its muted reaction to the Holocaust to the cover-up by Catholic authorities of devastating sexual scandals. 2013.