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THE STUDY GROUP ON CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY:

Mark Noll

and I represented theCFH and made presentations at an exciting

residential conference on "Christian Historical Writingfor the Twenty-

first Century" in Offchurch, Warwickshire, sponsoredby the British Study

Group on Christianity and History. The leading light of theSGCH, John

Wolffe of the Open University, brought together some 35British and

international participants, including DonaldLewis (Canada), Mark

Hutchinson (Australia), and Roel Kuiper (Netherlands).

Of possible significance to the long run activities of theCFH, a

smaller group of us met informally at theSGCH conference to explore

ways and formulate concrete ideas on how we candevelop and extend

international connections among evangelical Christian historians.

Among the items we considered were:

1)Developing materialsand resources that can be shared

widely, e.g.,a guide to research collections on Christian historical topics

country by country, an annotatedbibliography of books and articles on

Christian history theme, and small-scale biographical sketchesof lesser-

known evangelicals.

2)Encouraging the constructionof websites by the various

national groups which can make available informationto all the others.

Things that might be included on it would be: notices of future

conferences and colloquia, the ongoing projects of individual scholars,

addresses of the members, and useful bibliography.

3)The desirabilityof developing some sort of overall

organization that would have an institutional base somewhere and

thereby have continuity. Communications could be maintained by e-mail,

so that all could be informed instantly of plans and projects.

4)The holdingof an internationalconference in the near

future--most likely 2002--as thatwould follow nicely on the heels of the

Currents in World Christianity meeting in Cambridge September 2000and

Pretoria in July 2001. The Dutch colleagues would be encouraged to

sponsor this. A possible theme might bepietism, nationalism, and

international identity and community.

5)Seeking sources of funding. A number of possibilities were

mentioned and it was agreed that some key people at foundations would