[T]he very effort to make any kind of historical narrative can be seen as a sort of act of faith, faith that massive disruption does not in fact destroy the possibilities of understanding, and thus the possibility of a shared world across gulfs of difference... this also helps us see why for a Christian the writing of history is bound to be theological in some ways. It is not that considerations of doctrine decide the results of research; God forbid. But the possibility of telling a consistent or coherent story about how God's people have lived is inescapably, for the believer, the possibility of seeing two fundamental theological points. God's self-consistency is to be relied on (ie. God is not at the mercy of historical chance and change); and thus relation to God can be the foundation of a human community unrestricted by time or space, by language or cultural difference.
Rowan Williams, 'Why Study the Past', p.22.
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