FAITH

and HISTORY

Vol. 5, Nr. 1Spring, 2000



Retirement Reflections

As I leave the classroom this May after 44years of historianship and

teaching, Iam aware that transitions are also underway throughout

academia, in the historical profession and the Conference on Faith and

History. The dawn of the new millennium is marked by a generational shift

of significant magnitude. Mine will be the last teachingcadre with stark

memories ofthe Great Depression, World War II and the rise of the Cold

War. Atthat time my professional contemporaries benefitted from and

contributed to the explosion of post-World War IIhigher educational

opportunities andoptimism, fueled first by the G.I. Bill and subsequently by

economic growth.

It is in that setting that the Conference on Faith and History was

founded in 1967 at a Greenville College meeting. Thegoal was to explore the

implications of faith for scholarship and provide avenue for Christian

historians to interact as well aspublish their findings in a new journal, FIDES

ET HISTORIA. Many who attended the Greenvillegathering are deceased or,

like myself, in various retirementstages. Thus, it is time for new energy and

leadership to emerge to shape CFH for the comingdecade. The complexity

and challenges of Post-Modernism, multi-culturalism and societalpluralism

provide a bracing context for continuing theCFH dialogue. The involvement

of gifted younger scholars of both genders is essential if CFH isto perpetuate