Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)

Chapter 3: INTRODUCTION.

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About This Book

The work surveys the Christian church’s development from its preparation and beginnings through subsequent institutional and doctrinal growth. It defines the church’s nature and mission, outlines the aims of church history, and adopts a period scheme organized by shifting cultural phases. Coverage moves from preparatory and apostolic material into the ancient church, the medieval synthesis of classical and Christian thought, and later developments following the Reformation. It also treats sources and auxiliary disciplines and offers selected bibliographic guidance for English readers, all presented in a scholarly, pedagogical style intended for use as a revised university textbook.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. Idea and Task of Church History.

The Christian Church is to be defined as the one, many-branched communion, consisting of all those who confess that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ who in the fulness of time appeared as the Saviour of the world. It is the Church’s special task to render the saving work of Christ increasingly fruitful for all nations and individuals, under all the varying conditions of life and stages of culture. It is the task of Church History to describe the course of development through which the Church as a whole, as well as its special departments and various institutions, has passed, from the time of its foundation down to our own day; to show what have been the Church’s advances and retrogressions, how it has been furthered and hindered; and to tell the story of its deterioration and renewal.