The Ecclesiastical History Society Summer Meeting for 2014 will be held at University of Sheffield, UK, 22-24 July 2014, on the theme: “Doubting Christianity: The Church and Doubt.”
Men and women have always expressed doubts about ideas and individual doctrines, but the means and the implications of doing so depend on historical circumstance. Having a crisis of faith in the post-Enlightenment nineteenth century, with its concept of ‘honest doubt’, had different socio-political consequences to a crisis of doubt in, say, the fourth or fourteenth centuries or the present era. These differences persist both at the level of our sources and in the nature or content of doubt, which has been deeply affected by changes in science and technology. Any history of a Church also needs to explore the changing means by which men and women in power have sought to maintain credibility while also dealing with incomplete information.
Doubt, then, is clearly central to the history of Christianity. This meeting will explore this topic in detail, and more information is available at this website.