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narrowly on religious history(70+ or recent articles in FIDES on this subject,

with more thanhalf on American church history). He proposed increased

dialogue with Catholics and even with historians of other faiths (Jews and

Muslims) on common concerns. Lastly, hediscussed some of the strictures

recently raised by Alan Wolfe's ATLANTIC piece on the isolation ofthe

evangelical sub-culture.

Needless to say, passionate debate ensued, followed by an informal

post-banquet session on these issues, on the state of the CFH, onthe

organization's raison d'etre, and possible initiatives.Possibly the CFH

membership will be asked to respond to these matters andon the question

"Why are We Here?"

Saturday beganwith Session 9, "CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATION,"

chaired by Michael S. Hamilton,Seattle Pacific University, with papers by

Jeffrey P. Bouman, University of Michigan, "An Attempt toSatisfy All Parties:

Multi-Sectarianism atMichigan, 1837-1863,"Carol G. Woodfin, Palm Beach

Atlantic University, "Protestant Women andthe Battle for Confessional

Schools inthe Weimar Republic, 1918-1933," andAlbert Beck, Baylor

University, "Religious Discourse and thePreservation of Protestant Civic

Piety in Evangelical History Textbooks."Timothy E.Fulop, King College,

was commentator. Bouman arguedthat most American public universities

were not"non-religious."Michigan in the period under consideration began

as a multi-sectarian institution and then moved to a non-sectarianbut not

secular basis. This generally reflected contemporary society.

Woodfin's paper highlightedthe problems of the Weimar regime and

system in the framework ofthe issue of school secularization. The failure of

the Protestant Women's Auxiliaryto preserve state support of Protestant

schools led to wide-spreadconviction that the Weimar regime was hostile to

religion. This contributed to a weakening of support for the regime.

Beck's study concerned the values promoted by Christian primaryand

secondary school textbooks. Heconcluded that there are two basic

approaches:one which supports a kind of quasi-reformed "providential"

view of US history and a second that argues for a "dispensational" approach

to the American past. Frequentmotifs include the Christian Nation idea, the

providential natureof the American revolution and system, and the

promotion of a Protestant civic faith. The dispensationalists, henoted,

question American nation myths and the redeemernation concept; however,

some are restorationist, while some of the quasi-Reformed texts arecritical of

restorationism.