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Document Details : Title: Trends in the Study of the History of Christianity Subtitle: Five Decades of Leuven Scholarship Author(s): NISSEN, Peter Journal: Louvain Studies Volume: 42 Issue: 4 Date: 2019 Pages: 501-514 DOI: 10.2143/LS.42.4.3287169 Abstract : In the five decades since Leuven University started its English taught programme of theology, the study of Church history underwent a number of significant shifts: an ecumenical turn, an anthropological turn (towards the history of living faith of the common believers), a material turn and a linguistic turn. Leuven scholars in the field of the history of Church and theology contributed to a number of these new developments, especially with research focusing on the history of Christianity in Flanders. But they especially remained faithful to a strong Leuven tradition, that of the study of sources: ‘ad fontes’. With this approach of severe source criticism they contributed to the theological debate, e.g. on Vatican II and other topics, and thus maintained the study of the history of Christianity as a both historical and theological discipline. Another Leuven tradition in the study of Church history has flourished in the last five decades: that of the history of its own faculty and its contributions to the history of Church and theology. For that reason there is probably no ancient faculty of theology in the world whose history has been studied so extensively, profoundly and comprehensively. |
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