First, the study of history provides a classic mode of learning. Examination of primary and secondary sources helps students to think about their subject rigorously. They must learn to organize and assess evidence, analyze problems, interpret complex events, and, finally, to write with clarity and precision. In short, studying Church History helps students learn how to learn.

Second, history is popular. History's special appeal comes from its distinctive subject matter, the human past. Church History is interesting because it deals with real people and events, not with abstractions. The history of the Christian Church from the earliest times to the present offers a boundless variety for selecting favorite topics and pursuing personal interests.

Third, historical knowledge is important. Amnesia is devastating on the individual level. If I don't know who I am and where I've come from, then I can't know where I am or should be headed. Historical amnesia on the institutional level is even more devestating. For the church to be ignorant of its history is dangerous because, as George Santayana has observerd, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." As the church continues through the 21st century, it is imperative that its pastors and teachers know its history. Studying historical theology at Concordia Theological Seminary equips the leaders of God's church with insight both into where we have been and, perhaps more importantly, where we should be headed.

As the great church historian Philip Schaff has said:

"Church and History altogether, since the introduction of Christianity, are so closely united, that respect and love towards the first, may be said to be essentially the same with a proper sense of what is comprised in the other. The Christian Church is itself the greatest fact in the history of the world. . . . History, on the other hand, is the bearer of the Church; by whose means this last is made to possess a real existence, whereas, under any other form it could be nothing better than a baseless, fantastic abstraction, which for us who are ourselves a product of history, and draw from it all the vigour of our lives, would have no meaning or value whatever."