The Burden of Church History

This evening I crashed the American Society for Church History meeting to hear Laurie Maffly-Kipp of the University of North Carolina deliver her presidential address: "The Burden of Church History."  Here are most of my tweets.  I hope Dr. Maffly-Kipp will forgive me for just using the the surname "Kipp" in the tweets.  With two hash tags (#aha2013 and #asch2013) I needed the additional characters.

Full house for Maffly-Kipp church history presidential address. Room is hot #asch2013 #aha2013

Kipp: What does the ASCH as a professional organization have to do with "church?" #asch2013 #aha2013 

Kipp: For our students, "religion" and "spirituality" is more relevant than "church" #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: Is the name "American Society of CHURCH History" still relevant? She has long "chafed" under this name. #asch2013 

Kipp's research on African Americans have forced her to rethink the idea of "CHURCH History" #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: In the present we flee from institutional history, but the historical actors we study thought it was important #asch2013 #aha2013 

Kipp gives the requisite history of the organization (ASCH). A staple of presidential addresses. #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: ASCH forced to deal with diversity in the 60s. Scholars began joining who did not have ecclesiastical affiliations. #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: "Church History" as providential history disappeared at turn of 20th c. Took "church history" out of the church #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: Is she talking about "church" as a denominational/universal community or as local building? Unclear #asch2013 #aha2103 

Kipp: What is lost by the move away from a "church history" that has abandoned the church? #asch2013 #aha2013 

Kipp: Failure to acknowledge power of religious institutions leads to failure to see how institutions shape our lives #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: Failure to recognize church as an institution is driven by modern sense of self that is rootless and individual. #aha2013 #asch2013

Kipp: Flee from institutions in the study of church history means we no longer think doctrine or theology is important. #asch2013 #aha2013 

Kipp: Flee from institutions in the study of church history results in subjugating religious history to politics and market forces #asch2013 #aha2013 

Kipp: Riffing on "coffeehouse churches" as individualistic, personal freedom and the church as entrepreneurship. #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: Churches as a form of institutional community provides an alternative approach to the one that conflates church with nation .#aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: Church history must become more international in order to shrink role of the nation down to a manageable size #asch2013 #aha2013 

Kipp: ASCH needs more Catholics and Mormons. Too Protestant--always has been #aha2013 #asch2013 

Kipp: ASCH must appreciate "pleasures and pains" of life in community as a professional organization. ASCH is more "human" #asch2013 #aha2013  than the AHA or AAR.

Kipp: ASCH is a "society with the soul of a church" #aha2013 #asch2013 

Free books tomorrow from ASCH display tables! #asch2013 #aha2013!!!!