The Catholic missions in China can be regarded as one of the great might-have-beens in world history. If China had been converted in the seventeenth century, the impact on the future history of Christianity would have been incalculable, as would the effects on the religious balance in Europe itself. Philip Jenkins

A beautiful morning. The Namoi River is flooding at the moment and many roads are closed, but this route is away from the river.

Even in Europe, the late Middle Ages witnessed a steep decline in Christian power in the face of Muslim expansion under the Ottoman Turks. Ever larger numbers of Christians found themselves under Muslim rule, and the trend did not begin to be reversed until the 1680s. This point deserves stressing in view of the modern image of a predatory Christian West ever seeking to expand its dominion over an unsuspecting world. Philip Jenkins

I forgot the low level bridge was under water so I had to change my route. A beautiful morning for riding.

From the seventh century through the twentieth, much of the Christian story took place in the lands of the Middle East, where it was at best sporadically observed by Western eyes.  Philip Jenkins

In the thirteenth century, the height of medieval Christian civilization in Europe, there may have been more Christian believers on the continent of Asia than in Europe, while Africa still had populous Christian communities. Philip Jenkins

At so many points, the living Christianity of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Ethiopia, and Armenia takes us back to the earliest centuries of the faith, a time when the followers of Jesus were developing cells of believers within a still vibrant Roman Empire. Philip Jenkins

A beautiful spring morning. Even the magpies were mostly congenial. Somewhere in the photo there is supposed to be a flag flying at half mast.

Egypt offers a telling example of Christian persistence. Partly, the Egyptian church retained such a mass following because of its enthusiastic adoption of the native Coptic language. At least the Gospels and Psalter were already available in Coptic by around 300. Elsewhere in North Africa, the church’s insistence on speaking Latin meant that it never evangelized far beyond the cities, so that Christianity did not long survive the Muslim conquests.  Philip Jenkins

Another beautiful spring morning.