This well written and scholarly book is a significant contribution to our understanding of the intra-denominational antagonisms of the past five centuries and of the major role which the development of historical consciousness within those denominations has played. That after so many centuries some major Christian denominations still lack historical perspective on their sacred documents and institutional structures astounds.

Lawrence Barmann, professor emeritus, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri

[This book] contains a rich medley of essays, tracing the evolution of this “modern” term from its rise in Erasmus in the sixteenth through the early twentieth century. . . . [The] collection attends to the range of “historical consciousness” in Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, and Baptist traditions, noting those controversies that shaped the peculiar dimensions of the twentieth and twenty-first eras.

Peter Erb, professor emeritus, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

This collection of eight essays, along with an excellent introduction by Kenneth Parker, stemmed from papers presented at the American Academy of Religion’s Working Group on the Rise of Historical Consciousness....These essays offer a new and compelling narrative in understanding where historical consciousness stands as a challenge to Christian belief and practice, casting the battle as a family feud more than an attack from hostile outsiders. Parker’s very fine introduction to the collection; his essay on the First Vatican Council; and the essays by Theodore Letis, Darrell Jodock, and Harvey Hill stand out as important contributions in this collection. The essays offer exciting new insights on a topic that scholars could think had been exhaustively studied.

The Catholic Historical Review