I found the following quote from Fredrick W. Loetscher’s 1944 article “Augustine’s City of God” in Theology Today published by Princeton Theological Seminary (while researching for the City of God paper for the C&E Seminar). In it, Loetscher lays out the general scope of Christianity’s impact on human history – the study of history and the meaning of history; this impact cannot be overstated in the least bit. I find it not only insightful, but encouraging as it shows the historical reliability of the Christian faith, the real and present power of the ever advancing Kingdom of God, and real and efficacious nature of the atoning work of Christ. Ultimately, it shows that, for 2000 years, Jesus Christ has continued to be the most central figure of human history and thus, the Atonement as the central and most significant event of human history.
“Among the varied influences that have determined both the course of history and the development of historiography religion has ever been one of the most potent. And of all the great religions that have entered into the life of the race Christianity has most profoundly affected the historic process itself and our conceptions of its nature and meaning.
On the one hand, the Gospel of Christ, with its characteristic teachings concerning the spiritual life and the Kingdom of Heaven, literally fashioned a new world for man to live in. It enlarged the resources of human nature; it stimulated and heightened
intellectual pursuits; it chastened the affections; it not only restrained evil but purified the very fountains of morality; it gave dignity and worth to the humblest task and brought fresh sanctities to the joys and sorrows of everyday life. It redeemed men from sin and made them in turn grateful messengers of hope to their fellows. It showed that the life of highest spirituality might prove to be also the life of widest social beneficence, and that religious interests, in any true view of history, are far more important than the merely economic, social, or political factors. Above all, it created the Christian Church, quite the most remarkable of all historic organizations,—that institution which by the sheer value of its contribution to human welfare, temporal as well as spiritual, speedily won a place first of co-ordinate and then of superior influence, beside the state; which in nearly every epoch of its career has continued to accomplish more than any other agency for the promotion of the common good; and which, whatever be our judgment concerning any of its particular achievements or failures, must be regarded as having vastly enlarged and enriched the domain of history.And on the other hand, Christianity inevitably gave birth to new conceptions of the meaning of history. ‘The rise of ecclesiastical history was more to historiography than was the discovery of America to geography.’ The reasons are not far to seek. They are latent in those views of the world of nature and of human life which are set forth in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments with a clearness and impressiveness matched only by their originality and creative power. It is no accident that the first worthy attempt at a philosophy of history was made under Christian auspices and that it appeared early enough to be credited to the Ancient Church.”