Harnack and Troeltsch

As one of the leading historical theologians of the twentieth century, Wilhelm Pauck studied with Adolph Harnack and Ernst Troeltsch at the University of Berlin in the 1920s, and his own thinking was shaped by their work. In this book he clarifies their ideas and their personal relationship to one another, analyzing their particular contributions to the historiography and sociology of religion. Biographical sketches of the two men, set against the background of their time, are enlivened by vivid and amusing anecdotes about their careers and views on life.

Harnack and Troeltsch were among the earliest--and remain among the greatest--""interpreters of institutional history and the ideas that govern and maintain them."" Both were in agreement with Harnack's dictum, ""We study history in order to intervene in the course of history."" In its clear presentation of these two major figures, this book is an attack on the stronghold of ignorance about the Christian heritage that has, Pauck contends, impoverished and isolated churches in the United States.



Wilhelm Pauck (1901-81) studied with Harnack and Troeltsch at the University of Berlin and became the first foreign student at the University of Chicago in 1925. He joined the faculty in 1926 and was made full professor of Church History in 1931. After twenty-seven years at the University of Chicago, he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York. After retirement in 1967, he taught at Vanderbilt University for five years, and at Stanford University. His books include From Luther to Tillich: The Reformers and Their Heirs and Paul Tillich: His Life and Thought, the latter of which was co-authored with his wife, Marion Pauck.