A second possible reason an evangelical may journey to Rome is that he/she has a growing desire to "transcend the human limits of temporality to find connection to the entire history of the church." McKnight writes, "Many feel they are isolated in the faith, in a modern evangelical movement that has cut itself off from the history of the church."
I think this is probably true for many more than we realize...at least in the tradition in which I was brought up. We looked back to the reformation a bit - but that was about as far back as we could go. The stuff before that was off-limits. Where did the church go from the time of the apostles to the time of Luther's ninety-five theses. This "historical disenfranchisement," as McKnight calls it, leads not only to curiosity, but also to a need to discover how the church developed. I think the simple solution to this dilemma - would be for evangelical churches to take firm steps toward educating their members as to how and why their churches have come to their present state (emphasizing the importance of knowing the whole history). I really appreciate the fact that my professors at Moody did a pretty great job of this.
I was going to write a bit more on this, but my brain is starting to get foggy (almost time for bed). Anyways - I may have the opportunity to teach a church history sunday school class in the near future - and I think it will be a great opportunity for me to expand my horizons and an excellent way for our church to understand "why we are the way we are." I have been rereading Olson's "The Story of Christian Theology" as preparation. It is a very readable introduction - though way too large for use in a sunday school class. I just picked up Litfin's "Getting to Know the Church Fathers" to see how it would fare as a nice introduction to church history.
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