• Grace growing at a pace
• The Commentary
  Making economies
• Paul's Place
  How a ministry is growing out of family tragedy
• Teamwork!
  How the church should avoid shooting itself in the foot
• How to visit holiday churches
  Some challenges
• Thrown out of the church
  Joseph Alleine and the Great Ejection from the Church of England
• Skateboarding to God's glory
• Chuck Colson, 1931-2012
  Obituary
• India: Good Shepherd Ministries
• Unapologetic Christianity
  Bible blunders?
• The Music Exchange
  Music from elsewhere
• Crossing the culture
  You say you want a revolution...
• Notes to growing Christians
  Ongoing commitment
• The Third Degree
  UCCF hi-tech
• Letter from America
  Simeon in the USA
• Monthly youth leaders column
  The quiet ones

other articles

• Salmon fishing in the Yemen
• Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones
• The church, women bishops & provision
• CO2.1 - Beyond the EU's Emissions Trading System
• The renewed pastor - Writings in honour of Philip Hacking
• His blood works - The meaning of the word 'blood' in Scripture
• Excellence in preaching
• 20 first dates - My search for Mr. Right
• Travel through Rome - City of empire, Christendom and culture
• Religion for atheists
• Fighting fear with faith
• Making sanity out of vanity - Christian realism in the Book of Ecclesiastes
• Bringing the gospel home - Sharing your faith with family and friends
• Wigglesworth, the complete story
• The power to save - A history of the gospel in China

Beauty & the beast

ROME
City of empire, Christendom and culture
By Nigel Scotland
Day One. 128 pages. £10.00
ISBN 978 1 846 252 839

The Day One Travel Through series could not overlook the ‘eternal city’. After offering tour guides to Oxford, Cambridge, Israel and Egypt, it is now Rome’s turn.

What a normal tourist with an interest in Christianity looks for in a handy and up-to-date guide is given attention in this book. The guide introduces the traveler to the different ancient sites that make Rome unique: from the significant places of the Roman Empire to the catacombs of the early Christian communities up to the magnificent buildings of the Roman Catholic church. Historical introductions coupled with artistic explanations help us to appreciate the various monuments and works. Practical suggestions on how to organise the tour are also wise and helpful.

Perhaps evangelical tourists should also be shown the ‘dark’ sides of Rome as far as religious freedom is concerned. For instance, one of them is Campo dei Fiori, a beautiful square next to the baroque Piazza Navona where Popes burnt heretics of all types, Protestants included. In the middle of Campo dei Fiori, an impressive bronze statue of Giordano Bruno recalls his execution there in 1600 because he was a ‘free thinker’ in an age and place where total submission to the power of the church was imposed. A number of evangelical martyrs found the same destiny there. Rome is also the city where Christians after the Reformation were martyred by the papal institution. Generally, no guide tells this story to the ordinary tourist, but it needs to be told, especially to visitors who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Another gap in the suggested tour is Porta Pia where the Italian army entered the city and conquered it in 1870, thus ending the history of the Pontifical state. Up to 1870 in Rome, the Bible in Italian was forbidden and it was through the breach of Porta Pia that the first Bibles printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society were smuggled into the city and freely distributed to the people. The tragic irony of Rome is that she is known as one of the cradles of Christianity, but the reality is that the Bible was a forbidden book for centuries.

Besides these remarks, this book is a reliable and enjoyable tour guide of one of the most fascinating cities of the world (perhaps this is a biased comment!).

Leonardo De Chirico,
theology lecturer at IFED and church planter in Rome