Learning our Story, Teaching our Story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is customary for many today -- and I'm a big fan of this -- to speak of the Bible as Story. There is another story we need to know, and it is the story\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/19\/learning-our-story-teaching-our-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Learning our Story, Teaching our Story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is customary for many today -- and I'm a big fan of this -- to speak of the Bible as Story. 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{"id":3651,"date":"2007-12-19T00:20:49","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T05:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/19\/learning-our-story-teaching-our-story\/"},"modified":"2007-12-19T00:20:49","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T05:20:49","slug":"learning-our-story-teaching-our-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/19\/learning-our-story-teaching-our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning our Story, Teaching our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It is customary for many today \u2014 and I\u2019m a big fan of this \u2014 to speak of the Bible as Story. There is another story we need to know, and it is the story of the Church. Why? I can think of several good reasons, not the least of which is that we owe to our forbears to know where we have come from. It embarrasses me not a little when normal Christians don\u2019t know about Ignatius and Irenaeus, Athanasius and Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Wesley and Whitefield, to give some obvious examples. What can we do to help ordinary Christians learn our Story? One good way is to read biographies.
\nHere\u2019s a vocational calling for some of you<\/strong>: we need Church historians and historical theologians to write readable, lay-shaped biographies of great Christian figures. The temptation of historians is to write exclusively for the academy. Fine. But we need some of them to step up to the task of educating the church because if they think the ordinary lay person is going to read specialist biographies or monographs, or if they think the ordinary pastor has time to digest lengthy specialist studies, it\u2019s time to wake up and smell this coffee: never in the history of the Church has the Church been so ignorant of its history! And never in Church history have the sources been better and the scholars more abundant!
\nYou want a good example. Read Stephen Tomkins excellent, well-written study called John Wesley<\/a> $\"\"$ <\/em>.
\nTomkins also has a Short History of Christianity<\/a> $\"\"$ <\/em>, which I\u2019ll work my way through, but the next book of his that I\u2019m reading is William Wilberforce<\/a> $\"\"$ <\/em>.
\nBack to Wesley. I\u2019ve read Rack\u2019s big biography (Reasonable Enthusiast<\/a> $\"\"$ <\/em>) and it is a fine, fine study. But what we are most in need of \u2014 for the sake of laity \u2014 is a string of good biographies on seminary figures, males and females. Tomkins is a great example.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"