Building the City of God in a Crumbling World Issue 94 | 2007 Purchase this issue

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The first issue of Christian History magazine, launched by Kenneth Curtis in 1982, was clear about its purpose: "An awareness of Christian history is one of the most neglected but necessary ingredients in the spiritual diet of Christians today. … We are too easily captive to the contemporary and become unthinking assenters to our culture's seduction by the now, the latest, the present moment. understanding of Christian history will help us in many ways. We will uncover precedents in the past of how God has worked. We will gain perspective that will help us see our current situation in a new light. We will develop a sense of continuity and see how the unfolding of God's purposes transcends any single generation, century, denomination, geography, or ideology."

Twenty-five years and 94 issues later, Christian History & Biography still strives (as our mission statement says) "to explore the Christian heritage in a nonsectarian and warm-hearted spirit." We firmly believe that we're not just providing intellectual food for history buffs; we're giving Christians theological tools and historical models for wisely thinking and acting in the present. In short, the church cannot move forward into the future without listening to those who came before us.

But the leap from "Hmm, that's interesting and helps me understand our heritage better" to "This will change the way I think, worship, and act today" is not an easy one for many people. How often, in contemporary moral debates, do Christians refer to the past 2000 years for help in facing the current situation?

For our 25th anniversary issue, we wanted to take a sample of modern problems and historical figures and show how this could happen. We e-mailed scholars and long-time friends ...