The Church lives in the in between times This book is a sustained reflection on this fact on the meaning of the Church s life in time It is at once a theoogy of history and the reflections of a practicing historian on Church history Each chapter takes up a period of Church history and examines one or more of its central developments in relation to the present If the Church is in time in what sense does she retain her essence in what sense develop Is the Christianity formed in the earlier ages still accessible to people of the twenty first century or must it be radically reformulated Are central Christian doctrines formed according to the views and expressed in the language of earlier ages still intelligible How is a Christian to confront the age that is upon us The first chapter centering on ancient Christianity treats secularization and sacralization as simultaneously at work in all periods and uses the writing of Church history itself to illustrate this The argum