Re-Forming History

Does the discipline of history need a reformation? How should Christian faith shape the ways historians do their work? This book, written for students, considers the ""how"" of doing history. The authors first examine the current ""liturgies"" of the historical profession and suggest that the discipline is in crisis. They argue for ""re-formed"" Christian practices and methodologies for history. The book asks important questions: why do we do history, and for whom? How should faith shape how we do our research and tell stories? What do we owe the dead? How should Christian historians practice ""dangerous memory""? And how can Christian historians do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God? How might we rethink, reform, renew, reimagine, and re-practice the study of the past? Christian historians must be sentinels of hope against the world's forgetfulness, the authors argue, and this book offers some pathways for rethinking our practices from a Christian perspective.

""It's not often that a scholarly book speaks with such clarity to both heart and head. Sandle and Van Arragon have given us a wise, instructive, and in its own way deeply moving argument for remembering the past and its people.""
--Margaret Bendroth, Executive Director and Librarian for The Congregational Library in Boston, Massachussetts

""'Who is my neighbor?' Re-Forming History contends that, for Christian historians, everything should follow from this question, both what history is and how and why we study it. Readers won't agree with everything that Sandle and Van Arragon write, but they will find ideas worthy of arguing for and against, and a book that can help them grow as historians, citizens, and Christians.""
--William Katerberg, Calvin College


Mark Sandle is Professor of History at The King's University, Edmonton, Alberta.

William Van Arragon is Associate Professor of History at The King's University, Edmonton, Alberta.