“Like dazzling lights the churches were now shining all over the world, and to the limits of the human race faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ was at its peak, when the demon who hates the good, sworn enemy of truth and inveterate foe of man’s salvation, turned all his weapons against the Church. In earlier days he had attacked her with persecutions from without; but now that he was debarred from this, he resorted to unscrupulous imposters as instruments of spiritual corruption and ministers of destruction…”
So Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History describes the Church’s status during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian, and indeed it could serve as an epitome of the Church in the whole second century AD, with its growth, its persecution, and its internal conflict. Yet this crucial, fruitful time in the history of the Church is often unknown and unappreciated by Christians today. In his book, Christianity at the Crossroads, Michael Kruger aims to fill that gap in our understanding of the Christian past, presenting a holistic treatment of the second-century Church, its struggles, its accomplishments, and its enduring legacy. In this episode of Christian Humanist Profiles, David Grubbs interviews Dr. Michael Kruger, President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte in Charlotte, NC., about his new book Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church (SPCK, 2017). (A new edition is also available in the United States from IVP: Christianity at the Crossroads.)