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When Louis Ferleger readProfessor Yerxa's BOOKS & CULTURE

essay, he contacted him about providing a version ofit for THS's

HISTORICALLY SPEAKING. Ferleger and Yerxa have remained incontact

ever since. Ferleger, who has a joint appointment with THSand Boston

University's HistoryDepartment, considers Yerxa's appointment "critical to

our efforts topromote historical understanding. Don brings a superb mix of

talents and interests to this position. Hehas an outstanding track record of

scholarship andpossesses an uncommon breadth of historical and

historiographical awareness."

Professor Yerxa, who is aContributing Editor of BOOKS & CULTURE

and who also served briefly as associate editor of the Templeton-funded

monthly RESEARCH NEWS & OPPORTUNITIES INSCIENCE AND

THEOLOGY, is excited about his newassignment. "I feel very strongly about

the mission ofThe Historical Society," Yerxa remarked from his office at

Eastern Nazarene College, "and this is a wonderful opportunity to offermy

experience and skills as a generalist historian to anorganization that

genuinely takes history seriously and really does have the potentialto

rejuvenate the guild." "The only downside," Yerxa confessed, "is thatI will

have a very busy summer in anticipation of my THS assignment."Over the

summer months, he iscompleting a book on the contemporary debate over

cosmological and biological origins in Rowman& Littlefield's American

Intellectual CultureSeries and will spend a month at Wycliffe Hall as part of

the CCCU-Templeton Oxford Seminars on Science and Christianity.

(information provided by THS)

AN INVITATION TO CONFERENCE ON FAITH & HISTORY MEMBERS

to Join The Historical Society from Donald A. Yerxa

In several recent issues of the CFHNewsletter, Paul Michelson has

alerted CFH members to the foundingand subsequent activities of The

Historical Society. Several of you---including Paul, D. G. Hart, RichardEtulain,

and Dick Pierard---have joined THS and have benefited from its meetings and

journal. I have talked to others of you who have expressed aninterest in

joining. And I hope many more CFH members will join THS.

One possible barrier is the nagging perception thatTHS is essentially a

group of conservatively-oriented scholars. THS's commitment is to the ideal

of scholarly detachment, not to any political outlook.Prominent THS