Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-08T09:53:23.545Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Task of the American Church Historian*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

L. J. Trinterud
Affiliation:
McConnick Theological Seminary

Extract

It is part of our American folk-lore that sooner or later a criminal will return to the scene of his crime. And perhaps it is a bad conscience which brings me to this topic. Nonetheless, if indeed this paper be an exercise in the amendment of life, I take comfort in the fact that a confession of sin is hardly a profession of achievement. Consequently, if at the close of this paper I leave this topic no better than I found it, the effort will yet have been a phase in my amendment of life. I do not think that any of us will come easily or quickly to an adequate understanding of how greatly we all must change our ways. Nor will the change itself be accomplished by mere good intentions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1956

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

* Presidential address, read at the session of the American Society of Church History in Washington, D. C., December 29, 1955.