In this book, the term e vang e lical combines the third and fourth senses from above: It refers to theologically conservative Protestants with certain doctrinal commitments,
12 who are found in
many diʃerent churches and denominations (Baptist, Presbyterian, Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, Congregational, Christian, Brethren, independent, Pentecostal, Bible, Holiness,
and inter- and nondenominational), and who are characterized by various networks of schools, publications, and the like. Even more speciɹcally, while recognizing the amazing growth of
churches worldwide due to extensive evangelical mission work, this book focuses on evangelical Christians and churches in North America. A result of this decision is that the historical
development recounted here is primarily that of the theology of the Western church—the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches—and not Eastern Orthodoxy. Another result is that the
book concentrates on theological developments in Europe and North America.
6. Discern “A Sense of the Urgent Need for Greater Doctrinal Understanding in the Whole Church.”
This is one of the distinctive features of Grudem’s Systematic Theology.
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I concur wholeheartedly; thus, it is one of my guiding principles. One way of meeting this urgent need is to provide
understandable, accessible systematic theologies like his. Another way is to provide understandable, accessible historical theologies like mine. As Christians and their churches are exposed to the
development of doctrine, as they are able to trace the progression of their beliefs beginning with the early church, passing into the medieval period, moving into the Reformation and post-
Reformation era, and through the modern period up to today, they “will find that understanding (and living) the doctrines of Scripture is one of their greatest joys.”
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1. See p. 19 in this book for a helpful chart, “Reading the Companion Volumes for Greatest Benefit.”
2. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the De ve lopment of Doctrine , 5 vols. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971–91): vol. 1, The Eme rg ence of the Catholic Tradition (100–
600), 1971; vol. 2, The Spirit of Easte rn Christendom (600–1700), 1977; vol. 3, The Growth of Medie val Theology (600–1300), 1980; vol. 4, Re formation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700),
1985; vol. 5, Christian Doctrine and Mode rn Culture (since 1700), 1991.
3. This division of historical theology into four eras is a typical approach to periodization. The dates are not arbitrary, but neither are they rigid. That is, nothing in particular took place, for
example, in the year 600 to mark the end of the early church age and the beginning of the medieval period. As Richard Muller explains: “Even if the lines between these periods cannot be rigidly
drawn, there are identiɹable characteristics of, for example, patristic [early church] theology that are not duplicated in the other periods of the history of the church. The Reformation did bring
about major changes in the life of the church, indeed, in the whole of Western culture, that still have their impact on us today. And the perspectives on God, man, and the world that dominated
the West through the Middle Ages and the Reformation and post-Reformation eras were altered profoundly in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, marking the dawn of the ‘modern’ era.”
Richard A. Muller, The Study of Theology: From Biblical Inte rpre tation to Contemporary Formulation, Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 103.
4. A similar topical-chronological approach can be found in John D. Hannah, Our Le gacy: the History of Christian Doctrine (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2001).
5. John F. McCarthy, The Science of Historical Theology: Elements of a De finition (Rome: Propaganda Mariana, 1976), 185.
6. I count my first chapter, “Introduction to Historical Theology,” as one of these topics, just as Grudem has a chapter titled “Introduction to Systematic Theology.”
7. All of these doctrines are important and deserve treatment, but I did not have space to cover them. For the correspondence between the chapters in Grudem’s Systematic Theology and my
Historical Theology, see the helpful chart “Reading the Companion Volumes for Greatest Benefit,” on p. 19.
8. In a conversation with Wayne, in which I asked him what he would change if he reworked his Systematic Theology, he answered that he would add a chapter on the interpretation of
Scripture. Indeed, he noted that when he teaches the beginning theology course at Phoenix Seminary, he includes a section on biblical interpretation. Because of my interest in the doctrine of
Scripture, and due to its ongoing importance for the church, I include a chapter on the historical development of the church’s interpretation of Scripture.
9. I thoroughly concur with Geoʃrey Bromiley: “Writing a historical theology involves a venture and rests on a series of choices of aim, method, matter, and approach, choices which are in
some sense arbitrary and all of which are open to dispute. Even at best, then, the author will do justice neither to the subject, nor to the intention of the author, nor to the expectations of
readers.” Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Historical Theology: An Introduction (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1978), xxi.
10. Much of the following discussion is adapted from Mark Noll and David Wells, eds., Christian Faith and Practice in the Mode rn World: Theology from an Evang e lical Point of View (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). For further discussion, see the interchange between George M. Marsden and Donald W. Dayton in Christian Scholar’s Re view 23, no. 1 (1993). For a discussion of
evangelicalism in Great Britain, see David W. Bebbington, Evang e licals in Mode rn Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 198 0s (London: Unwin, 2008).
11. D. H. Williams, Re trie ving the Tradition and Renewing Evang e licalism: A Prime r for Suspicious Prote stants (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 4.
12. An example of these common doctrinal elements is the statement of faith of the National Association of Evangelicals: “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible,
authoritative Word of God. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth,
in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal
return in power and glory. We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit
by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are
lost unto the resurrection of damnation. We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
13. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994, 2000), 18.
14. Ibid.
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