We will rediscover the inherent vitality of our traditions only if we can enter the minds of the people who formulated them and thus gain a clearer understanding of the experiences and motivations that underlie those formulations. What will that require? First, open minds; second, new sources of information about the early Christian movement – information and analyses that will shed new light on the thinking of early Christians. Then at last those of us who were raised in the normative Christian tradition will have a chance to view the birth and development of Christianity objectively and with the clarity afforded by a new perspective.
See Also: The Earliest Christian Text: 1 Thessalonians (Salem OR: Polebridge Press, 2013)
By Gerd Lüdemann
Emeritus Professor of the History and Literature of Early Christianity
Georg-August-University of Göttingen
Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt University
November 2013
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Comments (1)
Why do you never mention the work of Albert Schweitzer on the Kingdom of God?
#1 - norman ravitch - 12/27/2015 - 22:36