Any introduction has its limits. It is like a sketch map of a vast landscape, which helps you identify some important landmarks and work out how they fit into the overall picture. Christianity is arguably the largest, most complex, and most diverse living faith of today. Inevitably, this means that this brief introduction cannot do justice to its history, ideas, and practices. It is best seen as a handshake intended to begin a conversation; as helping you to orient yourself and get your bearings.
If you are using this book as part of a taught course, you will be given guidance on what you might do next to take your studies further. If you are studying on your own, you may find these suggestions for further exploration helpful.
Visit a church, preferably an older church, such as one of Europe’s great cathedrals. Use a guide to help you “read” the church. What are its structures and symbols all about? I would especially recommend two resources:
Clive Fewins, The Church Explorer’s Handbook: A Guide to Looking at Churches and Their Contents. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2005.
Richard Taylor, How to Read a Church: A Guide to Symbols and Images in Churches and Cathedrals. Mahwah, NJ: HiddenSpring, 2005.
Make a study of Christian art. This is now very easy, since many excellent images of leading works of art are available to look at, free of charge, on the Internet. You might like to choose a theme – such as incarnation, annunciation, crucifixion, resurrection – and look at how (and why) various artists represent it. There are lots of online and printed works that will help you do this more effectively and enable you to get the most out of it. You might like to try these:
Richard Harries, The Passion in Art. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
David Morgan, Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
Attend a service of Christian worship, particularly on a great festival occasion, such as Christmas or Easter. This introduction will give you plenty of information that will help you make sense of what you experience. However, it is the experience itself that really matters. It is very difficult to express in words the sense of awe or mystery that often results from such services, especially in cathedrals. While many of these can now be accessed on the Internet, they are better experienced directly, as living realities.
Focus down on a Christian writer whom you might find interesting. Many find the Oxford literary critic and popular writer C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) to be an excellent gateway to a better understanding of the Christian faith, whether through his work Mere Christianity or through his celebrated Chronicles of Narnia – especially the opening volume, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. You should read a biography, then follow through by reading Lewis himself. For a biography, you could try:
Alister E. McGrath, C. S. Lewis – A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet. Carol Springs, IL: Tyndale House, 2013.
Works by Lewis that you will find interesting and stimulating are:
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. London: HarperCollins, 2002.
C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. 7 vols. London: HarperCollins, 2002.
Other Christian writers that you may enjoy reading include G. K. Chesterton; Graham Greene; Marilynne Robinson; Dorothy L. Sayers.
There are many other things that you could do: take a course in Christian theology, go on a pilgrimage, attend an Alpha Course at a local church, or stay at a monastery or retreat center. But, whatever you do next, I hope that you will have found this short introduction helpful, and I wish you well wherever you choose to go.
