Before I tell you about what this paper is, I want to discuss what this paper is not. This
paper is not a theological exercise, nor is it a paper advocating for any religious dogma.
Historically, the first archives were created and maintained by local governments.
Scholars theorize that the governments are the best place for the stewardship and cultivation of records at least initially, when it became the general practice of agencies. Financially,
governments were in better position for keeping archives, because archive cultivation and
maintenance can be an expensive endeavor, it is often thought that only governments have both the capital and the political will to organize around establishing and maintaining collections. Churches also host rich records for community, genealogical, property and historical research so much so that in some parts of the county these types of records predate kept by local governments and certainly federal governments. Generally, they document vital life events: births, marriages, deaths sometimes property transfers, adoptions and information that might otherwise be lost if it was not recorded and collected preserved for the inquiry of future generations. While it may be true that all records are archives not all archives are records. Archives hosts a variety of items that are significance to evidencing a certain event or occurrence in the life of an individual. Governments and private archives could greatly benefit from a relationship with nongovernment organization like a Churches that keep archives. Many of the reasons that support cultivation of a relationship like this includes: a back-up of records in times of conflict, organizational structure of churches which allow for the careful transfer of archives and finally a tradition and commitment to community input.
Church’s archives reveal not only genealogical records, that is blood relationships
between people, but they also may reveal social relationships between people, and depict a
family & status in a community. Additionally, it is not uncommon to find personal artifacts in
Church archives: journals, deeds, prayer books, adoption papers, wills and letters can be found even in the local church and they may offer a more in-depth view of the community and of a person’s character or habits . This is an attestation to both the thoroughness of Church archives, a church’s ability to cultivate an archive and richness of information that can be made available on a local level if relationships between churches and larger governmental archives can be better established.
When conflict arise between nation-states, archives serve an important role in helping to
usher in healing and reparation that supports efforts towards peace. Very often modern conflict leaves the victim in a state where her very presence is under attack and the right to access the truth of what has happened is violated by the victor of the conflict. Archives circumvent this eventuality and support the efforts toward establishing a baseline of truth from which both sides can reach reconciliation. Even under the best circumstances, government entities may be challenged by civil, political, social and economic attack by the people that they engage or by an outside entity. Under such an attack, archives are under threat. Damage to archival institutions may be a casualty of the aggression passively or sometimes they may be targeted by individuals for destruction with the idea of wiping out all traces of the enemies, history and existence. The United Nations Convention on human rights has made such a deliberate attack on archival intuitions a war crime. Further, in a post conflict environment people may question whether or not the government was the best entity to hold the archives. It is under such circumstances that a separate archive becomes extremely valuable to the wider society.
Above, is a valid reason for why Churches should receive greater support for keeping
archives and taking a prominent role as a secondary repository for larger repositories in the
archives of the community. Separate archives operated by disinterested nongovernmental
entities, respecting the private property rights of the donors, even in a smaller and theologically driven entity, can preserve the records through governmental conflict and provide access to them in accordance with donor instructions with minimum threat of interference, that an intergovernmental conflict may cause. That is a conflict that arises inside of the government and that imports to castigate and control certain groups within its jurisdiction. Finally, if a government entity is thought of being corrupt or incapable by the general population of being trusted with a truth, the people will find that reconciliation and healing is complicated when the vital records of their history in a community are influenced or under the sole control of the bad actors. If the government, either before or after a conflict engages a separate organization it may be beneficial especially in the time of reconciliation and peace-building. The Church entity may serve as a trustworthy institution for maintaining the integrity of the record. Not all churches are solely theological institutions devoid of a relationship with the Nation-state. In Europe for example, the state, & the churches are those in which every Christian in the state or kingdom was considered a member. For example, the Church of England is a state church. Another example is the Vatican and even Hagia Sophia in Turkey, or in all principally Muslim Nation-states. Because of doctrinal differences, mainly the doctrine of “separation of church and state, ” and the concept of the church & the place in the political arena, the state church records take on different degree of importance because of the relationship with the civil community. In some cases, keeping parish registers in countries with state churches is obligatory. Modern churches have had archivist take over the roll from the priest or pastors.
Sometimes it was the local church clerk or official who would decide what events would
be worth recording. Like the archivists he or she had to make decisions on what should be kept based on significance, space and capacity of the archive. In Scandinavia and many German states, the Lutheran church was the established church . The Lutheran pastor was a quasi-public official who was the authorized to record births, deaths, and marriages . Similarly, in England, a 1538 Act of Parliament directly required all ministers of the Church of England to record baptisms, marriages, and burials in their parishes . In 1597, another parliamentary act reinforced the original law, requiring that duplicates of parish records be sent annually to the bishop of the pertinent diocese. Pastors were also official record keepers in Scotland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and certain German states where Calvinism became the established faith . In areas of Europe where Roman Catholicism was the established faith, parish priests were the official recorders of baptisms, marriages, and burials . These priests were accountable to more than local parliaments, however. In 1563, the church & Council of Trent issued a decree requiring proof of baptism before marriage 10 . Pope Paul V in 1614 made parish registers obligatory 11 .
In the United States the Churches were heavily influenced by the record-keeping
practices of the congregations Europe. After all, that was their origination. In most of the
American colonies, state churches were established in so much as the leaders of the Church also had a political role in a community simultaneously. Some of the established churches, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Baptist, functioned on a colonial or state level until well after the American Revolution. But with the influx of more and immigrants, each with their own religious preferences, flooding into the U.S. and the attempts to impose religious uniformity all failed. Further, by and by as the United States continued to modernize, traditional record-keeping practices changed to accommodate a more mobile society especially in anticipating westward movement. Migration also fueled participation in less restrictive, and less formal evangelical movements prevailed. Baptist, Church of God, Methodist, and Presbyterian took hold and flourished.
It is important to note that that despite their religious preferences the western migrants
did not always have connections, on the frontier, to their preferred churches. For example, a
Baptist in Louisiana could have married in a Presbyterian Church. A Mississippi Methodist may have been buried by a circuit-riding Evangelical Christian or Episcopalian bishop. Many of these events were not captured by local officials but rather they may have been noted in the records of the closest local congregation.
Even though establishing greater relationship with Church archives is a good idea there
are certainly limitations. For example, many denominations have evolved and undergone many splits or mergers resulting in the formation of various branches or sects' or philosophical differences that formed new institution but left where the archives would be housed unresolved or neglected altogether when one or more denomination ended.
Another limitation to the use of the Church archives can include the emphatic rejection of
records of the “others.” Typically, this group included any person who was not a “member”
either by birth or by induction into the Church. Almost all Churches have a form of inclusion. In the evangelical traditions of the United States those who have been born again in Christ and baptized as an adult could be considered ‘true’ members of the Church. While the records of the state church required noting the birth of a child and his or her baptism, another church may have only mentioned a birth. Some Churches historically only focus on what was theologically relevant.
Another obstacle to using Church’s as participants in a keeping archives, is terminology.
Churches use a unique vocabulary to describe the ceremonies and the functions of a Church.
Sometimes the same concept is described with different terms by different denominations:
Baptist churches join together in associations, Lutherans and Presbyterians form synods,
Methodists unite in conferences, and Episcopalian and Roman Catholic churches are linked to the diocese. Even within records, terms can differ. In some congregations, the arrival and removal of members were regularly recorded. Baptists called them letters of admission, some called them letters of transfer, and some called them dismissions. Finally, the practice of many ethnic groups to maintain congregational records in their native language, dialects even ‘terms of art,’ can present an obstacle for a researcher who is from a different place. Imagine church records in Dutch, German, Polish, Spanish, and so on. Many old Catholic parish registers were written in Latin .
Despite these many obstacles Church’ the relationship between Churches and large
repositories should be cultivated for greater synergy. Todays technology has merged with years of records preservation by archivists, curators, and researchers to make records more readily available. Improved access would be the goal and working in concert access to important historical information can become more readily available in the future.
Church archives come in many types and thus have several different uses. The types are
examined below. The first type is the denomination focused archive. This church archive only
supports archival materials from a single denomination for example the ASTR Office of
Archives 13 is an online resource that was established in 2001 for researchers seeking information strictly pertaining to Seventh-day Adventist history. The archive includes: official documents, statistics and directories all about the single faith denomination. The site boasts approximately two million pages of free, downloadable materials on Adventism, including: periodicals, books, committee minutes, and research documents.
Similarly, the Brethren Archivist and Historians Network (BAHN) 14 was established
with the aim to support the development of a collection of historical artifacts related only to the Christian Brethren. The Christian Bretheren is a group of evangelicals from Britain and Ireland that formally formed in the early part of the 19th century. The online version of the archive boasts the same level of zeal, as is expressed by the denomination members. The archives mission is to house in such artifacts about the denomination and to make their resources better known in the world. As an evangelical order, the archive is used to spread the philosophies of the religious sect. The Brethren have been identified by Professor D. W. Bebbington of the evangelicals and their site carries forth this effort with its aims to encourage research into Brethren history world-wide. It also aims to assist those writing on such topics and to encourage cooperation, and greater understanding of the development of the Brethren movement. The archive has a heavy focus on outreach and supporting the publication and circulation of historical works on the Brethren, and to increase awareness of them.
Typically archives that focus on just one denomination or only one religious sect follow
the pattern of one of two options. (1) The site will create a collection with the audience that is of that denomination or sect alone. This will mean that most of the materials and objects that are being collected would be understood and appreciate a.k.a appraised at high importance and valued by the people who worship in the same denomination or (2) the archive is collected and advertised to try to teach others about the practice inside of the denomination. This information can be very useful when conducting research or when planning for a church archive of your own.
Type II:
The Church Archives that host religious artifacts and relics. A second type of church archive is one that hosts religious artifacts and relics
notwithstanding the denomination. An example of this would be ‘hmml’ located at
https://hmml.org/ . This organization is 55 years old. It has been sharing sacred texts from all over the world. The archive include photographs, manuscripts, scrolls and other writings that have been discovered and that were either written during, by or about religious philosophies.
Type III: Regional Church Archives
A third type of archives includes regional archives. These church archives focus on the
religious practice of a certain region in the world. Regional websites focus in on one area and
collect items from that region. They are often written in language of the region and have an
audience for individuals from the region. An example would be the Evangelisdch Lutherische
Kirche in Bayern: Landerskichiliches Archiv 15 . This archive focuses on the Christians of Bavaria. All of the information is tailored to that geographic region and is collected and advertise with that geographic group in mind.
The revelations currently happening in the American social and political environment,
occurrences surrounding Presidential elections, gubernatorial elections, criminal convictions of police offenders, the unfairness of the Covid-19 response resulting in nearly 270,000 deaths in America has caused me to pause and consider that the amount of faith placed in our central, federal government system in the United States of America may be unwarranted. The time seems very appropriate to examine alternate keepers and shepherds of our national history and so this paper is an exploration of that possibility.
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