It has become almost a commonplace of both historical and systematic theology to interpret the doctrine of the Trinity as an elaboration of the christological faith and formulations of the early church. That is true of such radically divergent interpreters of that doctrine's origin as Adolf Harnack and G. L. Prestige. Both these scholars agree in seeing the trinitarian dogma as a response to the question whether, in Harnack's words, “the divine that has appeared on earth and reunited men with God is identical with that divine which created heaven and earth, or whether it is a demigod.” Or, as Prestige elaborates the thesis: “If the godhead was not unitary, it was as simple to conceive of three Persons as of two; hence the deity of Christ carried the weight of trinitarian controversies without any necessity for extending the range of dispute, and as a matter of history, the settlement of the problems connected with the Father and the Son was found to lead to an immediate solution of the whole trinitarian difficulty.”

Four hundred years have passed since the bells rang out in Germany to announce the Peace of Augsburg. Each century since, historians have piously performed their antiquarian rites in its honor. It was, to be sure, the most important Diet between that of Worms in 1521, when Luther stood alone, and the outbreak of the Thirty Years War which involved many nations. The oratorical monuments erected faithfully on these centennials have generally emphasized the great gain of Protestantism in legal recognition, the assurance, by God's grace, of the freedom of the church, and the honest good of peaceful coexistence. But a sober analysis produces an effect rather more astringent than exhilarating and medicinal than intoxicating.

The period of the reforms in the reign of Peter the Great shook Russia to her very foundations, drastically altering her historical course. It is noteworthy in many respects, particularly in the sudden appearance of many men in various walks of life capable of envisaging and of carrying out these novel measures. In the Orthodox Church, which was as profoundly affected as any other Russian institution, this phenomenon is admirably illustrated in the career of Theophan Prokopovich, the Ukrainian ecclesiastic. The range and power of his intellect were enormous; a theologian, scholar, teacher, poet, dramatist, and man of affairs, he merits respectful treatment both from students of theology and literature as well as politics. He was the Tsar's intimate associate, well-known to Catholic and Protestant theologians abroad, friend of the poet Kantemir and the historian Tatischev, and a man who could influence the imperial succession itself.

Within the last twenty years the New England theology of the seventeenth century has been examined far more closely than it had ever been before, and the findings have been that this theology is very different from the simple “Calvinism” which earlier students of the period had labelled it. Professor Perry Miller, the principal worker in the field, concluded that the New England theology was really “Covenant Theology” and has declared that this is a very different thing from “Calvinism.” Others have readily accepted his findings.

Historians are in agreement that the Presidential election of 1928 aroused the concern of American Protestantism. Many observers have expended thousands of words discussing this election. Curiously, while most investigators chide the churches for their indifference to secular affairs, in this instance condemnation is usually because the Protestant churches displayed too much rather than too little interest.