Reddit mentions of Church History In Plain Language

Not so much "hiding" history, as if Protestants were keeping it from me on purpose, but definitely there was a willful ignorance of tradition and history in every church I ever attended. In fact one of the big things that got me started on my road to Catholicism after 40 years as a Protestant was reading Bruce Shelley's Church History in Plain Language. I read through this book and was discovering all this rich history and tradition and I began to wonder what happened to us (Protestants) that we'd think it was OK to just ignore all this and settle for what we had.

We ought to be celebrating this history, I thought, and instead it was as if each congregation I attended throughout my life believed that they were the very first Christians to ever exist. It really hit me when, right after I finished this book, the pastor of the church I was attending (I think it was a non-denom "community church") wanted the church to celebrate Holy Week with special services throughout the Triduum (although he didn't call it that). Two-thirds of the church asked "What's holy week?" and the other third almost split off because it was "too Catholic".

I learned a lot of good things from my time as a Protestant but willful ignorance of tradition, or retconning tradition to make it support the Reformation, was not one of them.

I have a book called Church History in Plain Language (Bruce L. Shelley) that is pretty good. Link

I'm reading:

Church History in Plain Language

A General introduction To the Bible

Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

And I really learned a lot from William Lane Craig's Defenders Podcast. Over several years he covered the major topics of Christian doctrine in depth. The best part is the Q&A time at the end of the class.

Church history in Plain Language

There are also multiple college-level courses available free online (search iTunes). Here is one: http://www.biblicaltraining.org/church-history-1/gerald-bray

I recommend this book. We used it in (christian) high school and found it very readable.

http://www.amazon.com/Church-History-In-Plain-Language/dp/0849938619

Depending on which level you prefer, I would suggest two books.

Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley provides a very basic, simple, broad stroke approach to church history. The elitists here won't care much for it, but this is a good place to start for someone who is not at all familiar with the history of the church.

If you want a little more detail, History of Christianity is one of my favorites.

While is true there was no consensus in early Christianity, Paul is far from being rejected by the apostles, even though he had his divergences, since he was a Roman citizen and had knowledge on Greek and Latin philosophy, while most of the apostles were born and raised Jews. This is beautifully explained by Bruce Shelley's "Church History in Plain Language": https://www.amazon.com/Church-History-Plain-Language-Shelley/dp/0849938619
This difference between christians is explained in the first couple of chapters.
Moreover, you brought Paul's book in the bible in the first place, to question his eligibility is dubious. Besides that, christians (myself included) believe that the bible is the truth, it is infallible, so there is no point in questioning the authority of Paul. However, I understand if this argument does not appeal to everyone.