A more balanced presentation of church history and heritage?

I have to apologize ahead of time for any violation of OST rules/norms/customs… This is my first post. Please feel free to point out anything that I am doing wrong so that I don’t repeat any offenses.

Based on my Christian experiences (e.g. interactions with other Christians, involvement in churches, reading church history), I feel that Christina history is often presented in an unbalanced way. I feel that the positive history is overemphasized and the negative history is rarely mentioned. I would be happy to provide specific examples of people or issues that I think have been presented in an unbalanced fashion.

I feel that I resonate with the following quotes from C. S. Lewis: “The actual history of every country is full of shabby and even shameful doings. The herioc stories, if taken to be typical, give a false impression of it and are often themselves open to serious historical criticism. … As knowledge increases it may snap and be converted into disillusioned cynicism, or may be maintained by a voluntary shutting of the eyes. But who can condemn what clearly makes many people, at many important moments behave so much better than they could have done without its help?” ”If ever the book which I am not going to write is written it must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom’s specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery. Large areas of ‘the World’ will not hear us till we have publicly disowned much of our past. Why should they? We hav shouted the name of Christ and enacted the service of Moloch. “(C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Likings and Loaves for the Sub-Human)

If my feeling is correct about this unbalance, then I would ask why haven’t folks like Lewis written that book?

Here is a quote on Cardinal Razinger as he commented on the opening of the inquisition files: The cardinal pointed out that Pope John Paul II (bio - news), in his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (doc), had called upon Christians to look back across the history of the Church in order to undertake a thorough “examination of conscience.” (Cardinal Razinger, Catholic World News, Jan. 23, 1998)

So is my feeling correct, that the “examination of conscience on the history of the church” is rarely undertaken?

I appreciate other folks’ thoughts on this.