Alister Mcgrath, in his book Christian Theology, An Introduction<\/i> effectively quotes Karl Barth and writes:<\/p>\n With regard to theology, we cannot be in the church without taking responsibility as much for the theology of the past as for the theology of our own present day.\u00a0 Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher and all the others are not dead but living.\u00a0 They still speak and demand a hearing as living voices, as surely as we know that they and we belong together in the church.1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The more we discover about the places, cultures, people, problems \u2014 the sitz im leben<\/i> \u2014 into and to which wise men (or dreadful idiots) contributed their thoughts, the more helpful those thoughts may be to us.\u00a0 Christian history and Christian theology must<\/i> be studied together, side-by-side if we are to expect the most fruit to be born from either.<\/p>\n A couple of examples are in order I think.\u00a0 Here within the comfort of our Evangelical world, we hold to the Doctrine of Trinity almost instinctively.\u00a0 We casually wear it, use it in our teachings, include it in our sermons with little consideration for the fact that people died as a result of arguments sparked by this topic.\u00a0 Disagreement over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or from the Father and the Son (Filioque) caused an irreconcilable rift between Eastern and Western churches.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 <\/i><\/b>From where we are postured today, it may seem like a minor semantical quarrel but if this quarrel had not taken place, in real time and with real people, we would not have this now casually accepted doctrine to throw around.\u00a0 These arguments were vital to the eventual development and acceptance of what we now accept as common.\u00a0 Or is it common?<\/p>\n This brings up another example.\u00a0 If it seemed that the church in the West had successfully divested itself of the pesky objections of those mystic Easterners, think again.\u00a0 Along comes the likes of Michael Servetus and his ilk.\u00a0 So, this single point of doctrine which we now so casually accept as \u201ctruth\u201d was casually opposed by Servetus and he paid a high price.\u00a0 For his willingness to enter into a difficult theological discussion, he died an agonizing death at the stake.\u00a0 I guess Calvin, that pinnacle of godly virtues, didn\u2019t feel much like having a dialog.\u00a0 And at the end of the day, the winner writes the history (and the theology) books, right?\u00a0 Oh, did I mention that Servetus was also opposed to infant baptism?\u00a0 Maybe if he had been more vocal on that one, and left the whole trinity thing alone, he would have enjoyed watching his grandchildren grow up\u2026\u00a0 It seemed to be of a little bit lesser importance.2<\/p>\n
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