About the Christian History Project

Why the Christian History Project?

Ted Byfield, General Editor

Two observations about the world at the dawn of the Third Christian Millennium brought this project about. One is the fact that we are swiftly abandoning many of the fundamental social and moral principles upon which our civilization is based. That is, we're zealously cutting off the branch we're sitting on. The other is the fact that very few people, whether educated or uneducated, know where those principles came from, and how we came to embrace them. We are dangerously ignorant of our own heritage and history.

The blunt truth is that nearly all those principles came from, or through, Christianity. All of our civilizations's standards regarding justice, human rights, education, private property, the need to care for people who cannot care for themselves, civic responsibilities and the sanctity of life have Christian origins. We are living in the most prosperous and comfortable civilization mankind has ever known. That civilization is the product of the Christian faith, and millions of people from other cultures have sought to join it and share in its benefits.

Now, however, it faces increasing hostility, much of it from within the very society that it brought about. This hostility is often historically groundless. It frequently parades fiction as fact, founded on records long known to be spurious, attributing motives to Christian people for which there is no evidence whatever, and suppressing all evidence to the contrary. But the remedy does not lie in futile refutation, which too often is little noted or even has the effect of reinforcing the fraud. Rather, it lies in telling the story as truthfully and compellingly as the credible records make possible. Moreover, where Christians collide, as they often have, each side to the controversy must be set forth as persuasively as the known facts support, leaving the readers to decide the issue for themselves.

In short, we see a critical need to tell the whole story of the Christians, what they have accomplished over their 20 centuries, where they erred, and where they magnificently triumphed. We need not pretend that there are no dark pages in the story, but for every misdeed there are a thousand good deeds, and these need now to be recounted.

The editors, writers, artists, researchers and professional historians engaged in the project represent much of the denominational spectrum of Christianity. They include many Catholics and Evangelical Protestants, several from the "mainline" Protestant churches. I myself am a member of the Orthodox Church in America. Our readers, represent a similiarly broad denominational array.

Finally, the books represent something else, best described by one Toronto reader. She bought the series, she said, chiefly for reference, or as a set of coffee table books. Then she was injured and confined to a bed for several weeks. "I began reading them, and I couldn't put them down until I had read all six cover to cover." That's the point; the books tell an exciting story. But what makes that story so fascinating is not we writers, editors and illustrators. It's the people the story is about.

The Writers

THE EDITOR:

Ted Byfield has been a journalist for sixty-three years and was a western Canadian news magazine publisher for more than twenty-five. In 1973, he founded Alberta Report news magazine and in 1988 British Columbia Report. A columnist for many years with Canada’s Sun newspapers and sometime contributor to the National Post and Globe and Mail, he was a winner of the National Newspaper Award for spot news reporting while serving as a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press in the 1950s. He was also one of the founders of the St. John’s Anglican schools for boys, where he developed a new method of teaching history. In the 1990s, he became editor and publisher of Alberta in the Twentieth Century, a twelve-volume history of his province of Alberta. He was the visionary behind the Christian History Project and served as general editor of the first six volumes. When the Project became insolvent in 2005, he formed SEARCH–the Society to Explore and Record Christian History—which has undertaken to publish Volumes 7 through 12. Byfield is president of SEARCH and continues as general editor of the series.

Charlotte Allan, journalist and author, contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, and New Republic, Washington, D.C.

Ross Amy, graduate of the Master’s program in Old Testament Theology, Briarcrest College and Seminary, Biblical translator (Cree), Beauvallon, AB.

Paul Bunner, former executive editor, Report newsmagazines, former director of communications, Prime Minister’s office, Ottawa, ON.

Mike Byfield, former editor, Report newsmagazines and former financial editor, Calgary Sun.

Virginia Byfield, copy editor, writer and wife of general editor Ted Byfield, was a daily newspaper reporter in Ottawa and in Northern Ontario, prior to working as an interviewer and photographer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Winnipeg, and as a newsmagazine reporter and editor for more than twenty years in Alberta.

Vincent Carroll, columnist, Denver Post, former editorial page editor, Rocky Mountain News, Denver, CO.

Calvin Demmon, former columnist and editor, Monterey, CA.

Ric Dolphin, former columnist, Maclean’s magazine, the Globe and Mail, the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Herald, the Western Standard magazine, and former contributor to Alberta Report magazine and the Alberta in the Twentieth Century series.

Francis Fast, classics graduate, Thomas Aquinas College, CA.

Mark Galli, managing editor, Christianity Today magazine, author of numerous books, Wheaton, IL.

Steve Hopkins, former executive editor, Alberta Report newsmagazine, and former director of publications at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY.

Ian Hunter, emeritus professor of law, University of Western Ontario and columnist for the Globe and Mail and the National Post Toronto, ON.

D’Arcy Jenish, award-winning journalist and author of seven books, Toronto, ON.

Lianne Laurence, former reporter for the Western Catholic Reporter, former managing editor of Catholic Insight magazine, and author of Borowski: A Canadian Paradox.

Frederica Mathewes-Green, author and contributing writer, Christianity Today and Touchstone magazine, Baltimore, MD.

John Muggeridge, retired college professor of English and history, Toronto, ON.

John David Powell, a former print and broadcast journalist and former Public Radio Network commentator, Houston, TX.

David Shiflett, has written for Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, Los Angeles Times, Manchester Guardian and other publications; the author of The America We Deserve (with Donald Trump) and co-author of Christianity on Trial (with Vincent Carroll), Midlothian, VA.

Gary Thomas, contributing writer, Christianity Today, and author of three books, Bellingham, WA.

Jared Tkachuk, history graduate, University of Alberta.

Steve Weatherbe, former teacher, a former staffer for the Report newsmagazine, former columnist of Sterling newspapers, Victoria, B.C.

Joe Woodard, former religion editor, Calgary Herald, Calgary, AB.