Re-Forming History

Book excerpt: Does the discipline of history need a reformation? How should Christian faith shape the ways historians do their work? This book, written for students, considers the “how” of doing history. The authors first examine the current “liturgies” of the historical profession and suggest that the discipline is in crisis. They argue for “re-formed” Christian practices and methodologies for history. The book asks important questions: why do we do history, and for whom? How should faith shape how we do our research and tell stories? What do we owe the dead? How should Christian historians practice “dangerous memory”? And how can Christian historians do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God? How might we rethink, reform, renew, reimagine, and re-practice the study of the past? Christian historians must be sentinels of hope against the world’s forgetfulness, the authors argue, and this book offers some pathways for rethinking our practices from a Christian perspective.