The Impact of the Church upon its Culture: Reappraisals of the History of Christianity

The theme of the church's impact on culture does not ignore, but rather rounds out the Chicago school's earlier and opposite preoccupation with the cultural-environmental factors in the development of the church. Brauer sees the socio-historical method which is identified with the Chicago school as "the first serious attempt in America to make church history a responsible scientific discipline at home in the university." These essays by faculty and alumni of Chicago Divinity School are presented chronologically and cover ancient, medieval, reformation, and modern church history. Specifically, the essays cover: the use of the prefix auto- in early Christian Theology; the period of Constantine; the fourth and fifth century relation between Christianity and Judaeism; some medieval reforming critiques; the importance of the church in the rise of Moscow; a new line on the problem of the sources of conciliarism in the fifteenth century; and various reformation essays including one by J. T. McNeil, one on Anabaptism, one on religion and science in the reformation, and one on reformation humanism. The final essays include studies of Oliver Cromwell, Schleiermacher, Joseph Miloslav Hurban, and one on Harnack.--S. O. H.