From the History Department Head

In the History courses at Covenant, students learn the history that affects us the most as a culture – that of the United States and of the Western World.  Students learn, in a series of two cycles spread over grades 2-12, U.S. history and the history of Western civilization.  In addition, in grades 9-11, the Western civilization survey is integrated with a study of the great works of Western literature.

In thinking about the nature of history as an academic discipline, the distinction made by Mark Noll between “ordinary” and “providential” history helps identify the proper role of the historian.  Ordinary history, according to Noll, deals with “evidence and causes and effects that most everyone can be convinced might have taken place.”  In essence, Noll contends that general revelation allows the historian to do his work on the Christian assumption that the world God has created is intelligible and that man’s mind can understand that world.  This assumption allows one to examine history and attempt to understand and explain cause and effect relationships in human events.

Kevin Culberson
History Department Head