Church History

An Introduction to Research Methods and Resources

James E. Bradley, Richard A. Muller

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781467444637
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Histoire du Christianisme

In their acclaimed, much-used Church History, James Bradley and Richard Muller lay out guidelines, methods, and basic reference tools for research and writing in the fields of church history and historical theology. Over the years, this book has helped countless students define their topics, locate relevant source materials, and write quality papers.
 
This revised, expanded, and updated second edition includes discussion of Internet-based research, digitized texts, and the electronic forms of research tools. The greatly enlarged bibliography of study aids now includes many significant new resources that have become available since the first edition’s publication in 1995. Accessible and clear, this introduction will continue to benefit both students and experienced scholars in the field.

1. Introduction to Church History and
Related Disciplines

In recent years, historians have observed a growing rapprochement between institutional church history and the history of doctrine, and this development has occurred at a time when the disciplines of church history are increasingly influenced by new methods of research, particularly those of the social sciences.1 This rapprochement is arguably the wave of the future. The point can be illustrated in a variety of ways: for example, one finds an increasing tendency in modern church historiography to place ideas in a wider intellectual context, sometimes broadening the latter even further, with attention to cultural symbol or “mentality.” Similarly, the new areas of research opened up for us by the study of women and ethnic and religious minorities in church history have oriented us to a wider social context. Both developments are linked to new methods of investigation, and both have contributed directly to the need for reconceptualizing the traditional taxonomy of church history and its subdisciplines.2 Ecumenical issues and the opportunities offered by religious pluralism and concerns for justice and equality have led us to become more sensitive to differences of opinion and approach, even as we discuss the progress of nominally orthodox dogma.

Despite these developments, historians of ideas, including many church historians, have continued to espouse older methodologies, while the social scientists have adopted a variety of new analytical tools to advance research and analysis. Increasingly, the more innovative techniques have revealed the inadequacies and imprecision of the traditional approaches, whether institutional or intellectual, when considered alone. We will argue that the traditional bifurcation of the field into institutional church history and history of theology or history of dogma is no longer adequate because this division itself establishes a topical grid into which the materials of history are pressed.

We will also argue for a necessary distinction between the “history of ideas” and “intellectual history,” the former approach tending to reify ideas and isolate them from their cultural and social context, the latter approach attempting to locate thought in its contemporary contexts. The methods as well as the subject matters of church history will, of course, continue to be contested, because conceptualizations of the past bear so directly upon matters of our self-­understanding, including our individual, social, and ecclesiastical identities. But the older arguments concerning the proper subjects and methods of the church historian, and the relationship of the social sciences to the study of history, seem increasingly irrelevant; the important question for the church historian today is the suitability of the technique to the specific task of research, which in turn is determined by the overall goal of the project and the nature of the evidence at hand. In this new context, the student should be prepared to adopt any method that appears likely to elicit the desired result, and such an eclectic approach will often require an appeal to more than one technique of analysis. The present atmosphere of diversity and freedom of investigation presents us with the need to reevaluate the traditional divisions and methods in the general field of church history and to test their compatibility with contemporary needs and outlook.

In spite of the promise we find in contemporary academic and social settings, recent trends are also laden with no little difficulty; the broad field of church history is increasingly complex and highly fragmented. While the scholarly competence and reputation of church historians generally has never been greater, the danger of overspecialization, as in all related disciplines in the humanities, remains very real. Competing claims with respect to methods of investigation have also resulted in a widespread malaise concerning the possibility of generally agreed upon standards in scholarship. Issues of epistemology, the nature of historical evidence, and the nature and use of language have also been the subjects of vigorous debate. Evidently, the increasing number and complexity of research methods is partially a product of recent innovations in technology and partially a result of the need for delicate and unconventional instruments to discern the voices of those who have left no traditional records behind them. But unless the connections between these developments are brought to conscious awareness and addressed, this complexity, and the growing suspicion of any form of objective understanding, have the potential to fragment historical studies even further. It is with these considerations in mind that we encourage students to imaginatively consider those research topics that have the greatest potential for drawing intellectual and social history together. We have observed that the new information sources and techniques of analysis have already proven to be a strong solvent in breaking down the older distinctions between the study of “sacred” and “secular” history.

Definitions of the several church historical disciplines are also related to the question of the objectivity of knowledge, and given the new methodological climate, this is an unavoidable question to which we will often return. The history of doctrine, for example, when construed as an independent discipline, was sustainable only on the grounds of objectivistic presuppositions. Institutional church history and the history of doctrine now demand a more holistic approach that takes full cognizance of the subtle social, political, and philosophical influences on theology. But recognizing the social location of ideas does not, in our view, necessitate the social determination of knowledge, nor does it lead inevitably to epistemological or methodological relativism. Church historians should aim at objectivity even as they acknowledge that it demands as broad and comprehensive a perspective in the analysis of ideas as it does in the depiction of complex events in the institutional or political life of the church.

The theoretical grounding for our emphases arises from reflection on the historical nature of Christianity and from considerations that are parallel to those of Wolfhart Pannenberg, who rightly observed that “no branch of history is under such pressure from its particular subject-­matter to consider the whole of history as church history.”3 We have also derived some insight from the modern Annales school, and in particular, the influential work of Mark Bloch and Lucien Febvre, who, in their unrelenting quest for a more complete reconstruction of the past, proved the truth of the maxim that “the deeper the research, the more the light of the evidence must converge from sources of many different kinds.”4 Christianity, Bloch observed, is a religion of historians, and the concerns of the historian must be as comprehensive as the history of the human race, because Christianity places the great drama of Fall, Redemption, and Judgment on the wide canvas of world history.5 But if the universal implications of Christianity are important for the church historian, methodological considerations necessarily follow. In a distinguished series of writings, historians of the Annales school have convincingly shown that the wide scope of the historian’s subject matter is inevitably connected with an eclecticism in method.6

The new environment we have briefly surveyed will not yield its full potential apart from a close analysis of the traditional definitions of the discipline of church history and its related fields; to the extent that past definitions of the discipline have unduly contributed to the separation of contiguous and closely related fields, these definitions must be carefully scrutinized and recast. The following survey of the conventional boundaries of the field of church history will reveal that the researcher’s initial orientation determines a great deal about the methods of investigation that he or she eventually adopts. We will also need to give serious attention to the history of church historical studies in order to estimate the considerable limitations of past conceptualizations. At the very outset of research, students of church history in particular need to recognize how confessional differences, when uncritically imported into the study of history, have invariably narrowed our field of vision and distorted the past.

Preliminary Definition of Terms

“Church history” is the broadest of all the traditional disciplines dealing with the church’s past.7 The discipline of church history encompasses the practice of the church as well as the thought of the church; it studies both dogma and the intersection of the church with society and the larger world. In this broader discipline we examine such matters as the church’s liturgy, sacraments, and polity; one might even include the subjects of homiletics, church architecture, and music. Church and state is also a topic of interest to the church historian, ranging from matters of persecution in the early church to toleration and secularization in the modern period. Anything that the church does in the world is arguably a part of church history. But we also look at what the church teaches, and thus historical theology is a subset of the broader discipline. Most narrowly conceived, the church historian might study the teaching of individuals, but inevitably one will also examine the teaching of the church universal, its creeds and councils. Finally, the discipline of church history embraces such topics as the mission and expansion of the church.

Like church history, “historical theology” is a general term indicating a broad area of study. The term itself is somewhat misleading. To some, it indicates the study of the history of Christian doctrine primarily for the sake of theological formulation in the present. To others, it means the analysis of the great dogmas of the church in relative isolation from the events of church history. Some definition and qualification of the term is therefore in order.

In the first place, the documents of historical theology are, with few exceptions, the same as those of church history, particularly in the patristic period. The difference between the disciplines lies in the approach the historian takes to the documents and the kinds of ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction to Church History and Related Disciplines
• 2. Perspective and Meaning in History
• 3. The Initial Stages of Research and the Use of Bibliographic and Reference Sources
• 4. Research in Primary Sources and the Use of Text Databases and Materials in Microform
• 5. The Practice of Research and the Craft of Writing
• 6. Preparing Lectures and Writing Monographs and Articles
• Selected Aids to the Study of Church History and Historical Theology: A Bibliography
• Appendix: Online Resources and Sources in Microform