Besides, the book soon became an absorbing read – and how often can one honestly say that about an “institutional history”?
Except Gwyn has not set out to write an institutional history. “My training,” he says (vii) “is in biblical theology.” Hence, his slant is both different and more ambitious: the book is “probably best described as historical theology [his italics]. It examines how religious ideas, ideals, and practices have evolved over time through a particular institution, interacting with changes in the wider culture.”
Hence the subtitle, the “Life & Times” of Pendle Hill. Beyond the comings and goings, the highs and the lows, the book “ventures a theology of history.” [His italics again.] And in its eighty-plus years, Pendle Hill has been favored (and cursed) to have been through very interesting times, historically and theologically: not only wars and rumors of war, boom and bust, but also vast cultural changes in its Quaker constituency, with a theological evolution hardly less sweeping.
And yes, Doug Gwyn sets out to comprehend and grapple with it all.
Does he bring it off?
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