One of my passions
I believe when I am finished with my Master of Divinity program at Covenant Seminary that I will move on to another institution to pursue a PhD in Church History.
Why? Two reasons for today.
1. The obvious, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I believe that it is a necessity to understand where we came from, what we dealt with, where we have failed, where we've done well and what we've rejected. That is a primary thrust of anyone who is fascinated by history, even Church history. For instance, most evangelicals know that Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) has been around since the late 1800's or so, and basically know various ways to combat their obvious heresy. But do most evangelicals relize that the heresy of the JW's is simply a recapitulation of Arianism which was dealt with in a Church counsel in 325 AD? If knows this information, then there is a huge resource to turn to, that is, how did our Church forefathers deal with this? A door is suddenly opened for the present day Christian, and suddenly the verse in Ecclesiastes bears itself out as a reminder that "there is nothing new under the sun."
2. My second reason is to answer the "why" of history. Why did certain things happen, why are things the way they are now? I am particularly intrigued by 19th century American Church History because it plays such a huge role in today's climate just by the simple turn of events which transpired. Think of a few key events from that century. You have the second Great Awakening beginning in 1803, the U.S. Civil War in 1861-1865 and the Reconstruction which followed, the rise of critical scholarship in the U.S. in the 1880s, and the list goes on and on. Those are just a few key events which most people would recognized, but what I am more concerned with are issued behind some of those events. For instance, did the Reconstruction period in the South lead to the rise of 20th century Southern Fundamentalism as a reaction from percieved Northern aggression, both socially and theologically? Is there something to that? Or what about this one, where did the Presbyterian Church (USA), when it was still theologically conservative, go wrong in the Westward expansion and go from the largest denomination with the most influence to having almost no presence in the "Old West" time period. Why?
I think that's what drives me, that old question which sticks in my mind as a read a date and fact, "why?", "why?", "why?"
Book of the day, which I highly reccomend is Reckoning With the Past: Historical Essays on American Evangelicalism from the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, edited by D.G. Hart.
Why? Two reasons for today.
1. The obvious, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I believe that it is a necessity to understand where we came from, what we dealt with, where we have failed, where we've done well and what we've rejected. That is a primary thrust of anyone who is fascinated by history, even Church history. For instance, most evangelicals know that Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) has been around since the late 1800's or so, and basically know various ways to combat their obvious heresy. But do most evangelicals relize that the heresy of the JW's is simply a recapitulation of Arianism which was dealt with in a Church counsel in 325 AD? If knows this information, then there is a huge resource to turn to, that is, how did our Church forefathers deal with this? A door is suddenly opened for the present day Christian, and suddenly the verse in Ecclesiastes bears itself out as a reminder that "there is nothing new under the sun."
2. My second reason is to answer the "why" of history. Why did certain things happen, why are things the way they are now? I am particularly intrigued by 19th century American Church History because it plays such a huge role in today's climate just by the simple turn of events which transpired. Think of a few key events from that century. You have the second Great Awakening beginning in 1803, the U.S. Civil War in 1861-1865 and the Reconstruction which followed, the rise of critical scholarship in the U.S. in the 1880s, and the list goes on and on. Those are just a few key events which most people would recognized, but what I am more concerned with are issued behind some of those events. For instance, did the Reconstruction period in the South lead to the rise of 20th century Southern Fundamentalism as a reaction from percieved Northern aggression, both socially and theologically? Is there something to that? Or what about this one, where did the Presbyterian Church (USA), when it was still theologically conservative, go wrong in the Westward expansion and go from the largest denomination with the most influence to having almost no presence in the "Old West" time period. Why?
I think that's what drives me, that old question which sticks in my mind as a read a date and fact, "why?", "why?", "why?"
Book of the day, which I highly reccomend is Reckoning With the Past: Historical Essays on American Evangelicalism from the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, edited by D.G. Hart.
posted by Bobby's blog at 1:38 PM
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