If Adventists are successful in declining to adopt for themselves religiously the modifications and accretions which other bodies have acquired from the past, maintaining themselves instead as a "people of the Book," why, then, indeed, should they study church history ? We set forth here seven reasons in answer to this question.
1. A quite obvious reason is a rather negative one—it is by studying church history that we find out how other denominations or sects have come to follow certain beliefs and practices which Adventists, on the basis of Scripture, do not accept. Church history shows us how, and hence why, this has come about. If the belief or practice does not go back far enough to be established in the teaching and practice of Christ and the apostles, Adventists reject it. The story of Sundaykeeping comes to mind immediately as an illustration of this use of church history, and its importance is evident. If church history has no other use for Adventists, its availability for this purpose would amply justify its study.
2. But this is not, and should not be, the only use church history has for us. We are not by any means always at odds with beliefs of the past. In fact, because of our conservative Biblical position on many points of belief, we find many cases in history of those who have held the doctrines we are now emphasizing. Salvation by faith through Christ Jesus, the Sabbath, the second advent of Christ, obedience to the law of God, all have had their faithful adherents through the centuries. Honest attempts were made by these earnest early Christians to understand the prophecies of the books of Daniel and the Revelation. The year-day principle was used in prophetic interpretation in the early centuries, and the great prophetic periods were studied. There is evidence in the archives being collected by the General Conference custodian that for more than four hundred years there have been efforts to learn the application of the 2300-day prophecy, which the Spirit of prophecy, through Mrs. White, has so clearly confirmed for us.
4. Are there not, too, lessons to be had from church history? History does not repeat itself ; that is, one dare not attempt accurately to predict corning events by the past. Yet similar circumstances may give cause for expecting similar consequences. What, for instance, may be the effect upon a religious body of popularization? What, of governmental approval and support? An examination of fourth-century church history suggests a probable answer. Christians were still a definite minority element in the population when Constantine granted to them, in the years 312-313 AD., his toleration, approval, and support. Up till then they had been persecuted from time to time. Afterward, influx of new communicants into the church was great and rapid, so much so that the church could not assimilate thoroughly its new members. The result we know: the church's beliefs and practices were modified, and compromises were made with heathenism. Similar circumstances have later led, and may again lead, to similar results.
5. Again, we learn how men of the past reacted to opposition or persecution. Persecuting authorities have destroyed most of the records of persecuted minorities, but not all.
Recently there became available a reproduction of the church book, or clerk's record, of the Bedford church in England, the nonconformist congregation of which John Bunyan was a founder and leader. Now we may read, in facsimile of the clerk's own handwriting, of Bunyan's work in the church, and the very record of his eventual arrest for preaching the gospel in disobedience to the laws of the English realm.
6. There is another side to the advantages of the study of church history, one which we have perhaps neglected somewhat in our haste to do quickly what the Lord has now especially committed to men to do. That is the cultural side. Religion has ever been, as we may know from Mrs. White's writings, a great quickener of men's minds. Only when it has become decadent and senile has religion been a restricting influence. Therefore, Christianity has developed some of the greatest thinkers of the ages. We cannot always agree with what these great minds have taught—though with some of them, and with part of the teaching of others, we can agree—but as we see how religious thought has in the past quickened the minds of Christians, we ourselves may sense the value of thoughtful study when aided by the Spirit of God.
Let us glance at a few names from former centuries: Paul, the Jew and Roman citizen, trained in Greek modes of thought; Tertullian, the great Montanist, called the father of ecclesiastical Latin expression ; Ambrose, bishop of Milan, the towering exponent of spiritual authority over sin, before whom an erring emperor knelt in repentance ; Augustine, whose book "On the City of God" reshaped, though fallaciously, the church's whole system of prophetic interpretation, and gave a unique cast to medieval ecclesiastical thinking; Berr2rd of Clairvaux, whose mysticism kept religious thought of the twelfth century from utter sacerdotalistn Calvin, who, being unexpectedly present early in his career at a colloquy between monks and reformers in Switzerland, rose and without direct preparation for the occasion quoted from memory by book and chapter the early Latin authorities, and saved from immediate embarrassment the reformed cause challenged by the monks. What may not cultivated minds accomplish for God in this clay when culture and thought are so highly valued?
7. Closely allied with this as a value of church-history study may be placed the lesson we learn of the power of an idea in human thinking. It was Augustine of Hippo, in his controversy with Pelagius, who took from the apostle Paul the idea of the sovereign deity, and developed from it the concept of a God predestinating His creatures to eternal weal or woe. From him, Calvin took the idea and made it a basic doctrine in his whole system of theology, thus furnishing to his followers an ideological impulsion which sent them abroad in a remarkable career of spiritual exploration and conquest. How can we overemphasize the importance of the doctrine of righteousness by faith, revealed in Habakkuk, made a beacon light by Paul, set forth anew by Luther, and given emphatic place by Mrs. White in the setting of the threefold message ? How powerfully, too, has the responsibility laid upon God's people in Matthew 24:14 actuated Seventh-day Adventists ! Church history reveals to us the power of an idea, especially when that idea is inspired of God.
By-Products in Study of Church History
May we suggest also that there are certain by-products, as it were, in the study of church history. As we observe the bitterness of past religious controversies, and the horrors of persecution in which most great religious bodies have engaged when they became sufficiently powerful, should we not seek a better spirit of understanding, even in disagreement; of tolerance, even where there is deep conviction; of a gallant fight for truth against error without bitterness or rancor ? Did not Christ in dealing with Satan in the matter of the resurrection of Moses, refrain from bringing "a railing accusation"?
A review of church history, again, seems to point out the insignificance of petty differences. Without holding up for the least ridicule the practice of any people, should we not deem it a pity that two groups of believers held aloof from one another because the one used long-stemmed, the other, short-stemmed, smoking pipes, as is reported of a European sect doing mission work a few years ago in Ethiopia?
Then, too, we learn from church history that contrary views, though troublesome, may often prove of value to emphasize elements that have become sidetracked in Christian thinking. Is that not why God called forth the Adventist movement in the early years of the nineteenth century? Someone has said, "Every schism has emphasized a neglected truth."
With it all, too, we learn from church history the need for watchfulness, for guarding against changes and modifications in the true positions which we hold. Were we, like the Liberalists, believers in the fluidity of religious tenets, then the present only would count for us. But such we are not. Our roots go back to the remote past of the apostles, and beyond; and although we must avoid becoming static, in the name of constancy we are warned by the great changes made in response to current influences by the sects and their leaders appearing in church history, that we must retain and maintain our basic beliefs and principles.
(The bibliography for this article appears on Page 46.)
