In studying historiography we need a particular subject devoted to the Christian view of history, namely, Christian historiography. One of the most dominant features of Christian historiography is its perspective of God’s salvation history, which views and interprets history quite differently from that of the secular one.

As C. T. McIntire defines it, Christian historiography refers to an historiography which itself examines the history of peoples, societal structures and institutions, ideas, mores, and patterns of life, according to the sorts of insights and values provided by a Christian view of people society, norms, history, the world and the whole of created reality (1975:53).

A Christian Philosophy of Historiography

Bebbington well remarks the position of Christian philosophy of historiography. Human behavior is both determined by God and chosen by man. Similarly, human behavior is both molded by circumstances and freely undertaken by individuals. Regularity and spontaneity coexist in history. The historian recognizes eternal influences on human action but also treats human beings as freely responsible for what they do. He wants to use a method that is capable of making generalization and yet allows for the unique (1990:166).

The Task of Christian Historiography

History on Christian premises has the apologetic task of revealing God who stands behind and acts within the historical process. It also serves the evangelical task of proclaiming Jesus Christ as the one whose victorious work assures us that God will bring history to a triumphant close. Christian history brings hope. Here is a continuing call for Christian historians. Historiography can be distinctively Christian. Allied with a Progress of historiography that makes sense of the historian’s work, it can operate within a Christian frame of meaning (Bebbington 1990:188).

McIntire discusses Christian historiography in theological categories. On the one hand, the theologies of history examine the overarching matters of redemptive history, including themes like God’s work in history, the meaning of Christ’s life and work to history, eschatology, common grace and special grace, providence, divine pattern in history, and so on. On the other hand, the theologies of history explore the historicity of the biblical accounts (1975:62). A good example of this discipline will be observed in the New Testament Salvation History by Oscar Cullmann. According to his New Testament view, all the epochs which made up salvation history are oriented towards the happening of the decisive period, the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Salvation history is not oriented to the ‘beyond’ of history, but to a saving event (Cullmann 1967:166).

The ongoing task of Christian history is to make functional within the practice of the writing and teaching of history certain primary biblical insights into the nature of human beings, the process of history, cultural work, the interplay of evil and redemption within history, the meaning of justice, stewardship, and love, the nature of the social order, and the structure of created reality (McIntire 1975:66).

McIntire again discusses the responsibility of Christian historians. Their responsibility is to carry on their study of history in such a way that their written and taught histories may be shaped by the insights into the nature of history, created reality, human beings, societal structures, evil and redemption, and healthful norms that a Christian world-and-life-view provides (74).

In its all diverse schools and interpretations of history, what is, then, the unity of history? Reinhold Niebuhr brings a fresh theological perspective into the inquiry. For Niebuhr, the unity of history is a matter of faith rather than of sight. Historians have usually great difficulty with philosophical patterns of meaning because these fail to do justice to the complexity of historical patterns and the wide variety of historical facts. The unity of history by faith, rather than by sight, is a guard against all premature effort to correlate the facts of history into a pattern of too simple meaning (1949:112).

Niebuhr again discusses the biblical sense of the unity. The pinnacle of faith in the New Testament religion is the final expression of certainty about the power of God to complete our fragmentary life. With Plato men have always sought some rational certainty about the immortality of the soul by seeking to prove that the dimension of human existence would survive the death of the body. The biblical sense of the unity of man in his body, mind, soul makes the Platonic escape from the contingent character of human experience impossible (150).

Niebuhr concludes his observation of history from his theological perspective. The truth of the gospel must be preached today to a generation which hoped that historical development would gradually emancipate man from the ambiguity of his position of strength and weakness and would save him from the sin into which he falls by trying to evade or deny the contradiction in which he lives (243).

Bradly and Muller find an epoch of church history in Philip Schaff (1819-93). Schaff is sometimes considered the father of American church history, not because he wrote much on the American church, but because he brought together the best advances in the study of church history and set new standards for the discipline in the United States. In 1846 he published an essay entitled What is Church History?, subtitled “A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development. Here he set forth his own understanding of church history, called “The Reformed Catholic Perspective.” (1995:14).

Perhaps it is in Kenneth Scott Latourette that we find one of the most matured methodology for Christian historiography. Indeed, with his remarkable way of interpreting historical events, he opened a new chapter in modern church history.

Latourette raises two sets of questions. His historical question are: Why has Christianity spread? By what process has it spread? What have been its human and cultural consequences? Why does it continue to advance and yet suffer setbacks? Why has the life of Jesus been the “most influential ever lived on this planet?”

His theological questions are: Does history have a meaning? If so, what is it? Did God act uniquely in Jesus, sending him into the world in order to save it? Will God achieve all His purposes with him? (Speck 1975:123).

Latourette aims to investigate the “mechanical and human factors” operation in cultural and influencing the flow he lists as the “geographical, climatic, economic, political, social, aesthetic, and intellectual.” He looks for causes “in preceding events in human nature, and in the physical environment” (Speck 1975:123-124).