A few weeks ago I was discussing with a peer about what we where taking for the fall semester. And I asked her if she was in a crazy class that went from 6pm until 9m that happens to be church history. She told me no and ‘church history does not matter much because it does not inform my faith’. I was a little put off; history informs everything that we do. As of late in my church history class we have been discussing the missionary movement and how it moved to international and away from domestic mission.
This was due to the viewed failure of the mission to Native Americans and the lost sense of hope. But this hope and optimism was found in international mission and the mission to the American Indians fell to the wayside. But what does this matter to me you ask me dear readers. It matters because as Americans we have let a unfair practice of putting Native Americans on to reservations where mental illness, alcoholism, sub par schools and communities are permitted to exist with out remedy. What has this to do with the church, well we let it continue we don’t stand for change.
From a social work perspective the great depression gave way for the founding of most of our social programs like food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, social security and many others. Under Johnson who himself came from nothing we got the modern inception until 1996. At this point it was changed by Clinton and benefits and programs where vastly reduced and changed making it almost impossible to get from A to Z because all of the other points along the way to self determination and independence where gone if the existed at all. And where do our churches step in often, in feeding, and community outreach.
Why does history matter? Because history is always informing what we do, what we don’t do and the reasons for both. In my studies of history a question that comes to my mind frequently is “does history make people or do people make history”. This is why church history matters, because we can learn how not to fight wars, and how to create the basilica of God right here.
