history's impact on the present

The historian who lives within a community of faith does not sit on a pedestal outside history. He shares the agonies, the frustrations, and the sense of promise in history. Like the jurist, he is aware of precedents of the past which are pregnant with new relevance, new life. Therefore, also in order to take time by the forelock, the historian must participate with a sense of social responsibility in the processes that define current conflicts and policies. The church historian accordingly writes of the past not merely for the past itself, but for its impact on the present.

--James Luther Adams