Silence: A Christian History

Based on six 2012 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, MacCulloch (history of the church, St. Cross Coll., Univ. of Oxford; Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years) presents a sweeping overview of silence as a theme occurring throughout Christianity. Silence and religion enjoy an increasing body of literature, as the nearly 600 citations here indicate. The author begins with silence seen in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and traces it through monasticism, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and to later times, where he emphasizes its negative use as means of concealment in anti-Semitism, slavery, gender issues, and clergy abuse. While the work emphasizes history, particularly in the West, rather than deeper examination of silence in prayer experience, as offered in Martin Laird's A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation, it presents fairly such mystics as St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, though slips occur—Catherine of Siena was neither wife nor mother. MacCulloch's very personal viewpoint reflects his perspective as a former ordained deacon in the Church of England; he now describes himself as a "candid friend of Christianity."