© koninklijke brill nv, leiden,  | doi: ./- Religion & Theology  () – & Religion Theology brill.com/rt The Dogma of History A Hermeneutical Inquiry into the Historiography of Doctrinal Criticism Michael D. Beardslee Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California beardslee.mike@gmail.com Abstract This essay considers the role of historiography in doctrinal criticism from a hermeneu- tical perspective and in light of postcolonial and postmodern criticisms. First, histori- ography is defined using a Gadamerian typology, providing the basis for an analysis of Kenneth Scott Latourette’s well-respected essay on Christian historiography. This read- ing of Latourette illuminates the dogmatic nature of the prejudices informing Christian historical scholarship. Finally, these insights are applied to doctrinal criticism, arguing that the relationship between doctrine and historiography is dialectical, rather than one element having dominance over the other. It concludes by suggesting a chastened, “two-tiered” approach to doctrinal criticism capable of responding to the charges men- tioned and to current trends in global Christianity. Keywords doctrine – hermeneutics – theological method – world Christianity – doctrinal criti- cism – historiography – Kenneth Scott Latourette – Hans-Georg Gadamer The concept of doctrine is somewhat out of favor. For its critics, anxieties over doctrine are seen to display outmoded linguistic ideals or perhaps a misun- derstanding about the nature of belief, that doctrinal theology “tacitly, if not explicitly, encourages believers to be more concerned about the correctness of 1 Two recent texts on doctrine are prefaced as an attempt to resuscitate doctrine from its apparent decline.; cf. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville, ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005); Anthony C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 2007). Downloaded from Brill.com07/22/2020 05:57:37PM via free access