Facebook killed the Blogging Star

The discovery of a legion of old friends on Facebook has taken up much of my 'free' internet time over the past few months. And a status update is so much easier than an entire post. [insert lengthy rant on the concentration span of Gen X here]. On the plus side, I just got thoroughly trounced in a game of Scrabulous by three school friends who live in Sweden, Dubai and the USA, and who I havent seen for 15 years!

hmmm...

Well, a very quick post to say that I am still alive! It's been a busy semester of lecturing and researching, as well as a couple of trips back to Brisbane after my grandfather died unexpectedly a month ago. It has been good to have time with my family and reminded me of the value of taking time off... something I hope to do a bit more in the next month or so!
This weekend I am speaking about nineteenth-century evangelical women activists, to a meeting of Christians for Biblical Equality. I'm enjoying adding to my rather basic knowledge about a generation or two of women whom I admire enormously but who also left us with a rather problematic heritage.
Then I am off to England in a fortnight for a Charles Wesley extravaganza... it's a small conference celebrating the tercentenary of his birth, but the organisers have attracted some scholarly 'big hitters' as keynote speakers, including Mark Noll and Phyllis Mack. I am speaking about Wesley's hymns 'For Condemned Malefactors', which he wrote for those he visited in prison. I suspect mine will be one of the odder papers!
When I get back I am helping to run a day conference on 'Missions and Colonialism', which should be fantastic (if I say so myself!) - lots of new research and conversation about how missionaries furthered or resisted the British imperial project. To my mind, a very important question.
In the meantime, I have a couple of posts in mind. If I can steer clear of facebook for long enough, I will try to get them written!

The Historian

On the long flight back from Perth recently, I got stuck into Elizabeth Kostova's book The Historian. With a title like that, it had to be worth reading! I had heard good things, and it was indeed an engrossing read. It's basically a re-telling of the story of Dracula, recounted through a family quest across centuries and continents. Along the way, there are plenty of gothic chills, romantic sub-plots and sweeping historical narratives (for people who like that kind of thing). It's a kind of like The Da Vinci Code would have been if it was well-written, historically informed, and not blindingly predictable. My only quibble is that at times I thought it took itself a bit too seriously... perhaps it's just my disturbing sense of humour, but I see obvious comic potential in the subject of the search for Dracula! Overall, though, I recommend it.
Perhaps not as late-night reading for beautiful young maidens, though!

busy, busy

I've been out of town for a while, and am now back working through all the tasks that were neglected while I was away. I start lecturing (for the first time) in a week or so and I am starting to wonder whether I'm up to it. Nothing like a new job to cause an existential crisis. Do I actually know anything, I ask myself?

This Book is Not Good

Eugene McCarreher really, really doesn't like Christopher Hitchens' new book. While I found this enjoyable reading, it was kind of a guilty pleasure: it felt a bit like being in the audience of an arena watching a very cross lion have Christopher for lunch.
H/T Byron.

Making a Difference

The news is full of the tragic state of Aboriginal communities - and the radical initiatives proposed by our PM to improve the situation. I've been discussing this online and in person over the past few days, but I don't have a clear opinion on whether these initiatives are good or bad - or a bit of both. I don't feel informed enough to make sweeping judgements. (Many of you would be amazed to hear that I think I need information in order to make sweeping judgements, I know!)
What does concern me, though, is the way in which this situation is being used to portray Aboriginal communities in a very familiar way. The message seems to be: Aborigines can't help themselves, so 'we' (Federal Government, non-Aboriginal people, experts) need to step in and fix things. I have nothing against intervention per se. But I think that firstly, to blame Aboriginal people without taking seriously our responsibility as a nation for this situation is both historically and morally wrong. And secondly, I think there should be recognition of the many examples of positive changes that have come from within Aboriginal communities.
As just one example, let me mention Woolaning Homeland Christian School. Check out a fascinating paper on the birth and (literal) vision of this initiative. In the midst of our urgency to fix things, to bring about change, we need to not forget the many Aboriginal people who have long laboured to bring about change in their communities - and achieved amazing things - without much support at all. Surely we should be listening to their voices as we seek solutions? Surely they should be given the opportunity to lead the way?

William Cavanaugh

I have been a big fan of the Roman Catholic theologian William T Cavanaugh since I became aware of his work during his visit to Melbourne last year - I was privileged to be part of a small group that discussed with him his work on torture and found him particularly thoughtful and gracious. I have been dipping in and out of his book Torture and Eucharist all year... as a model of historical reflection informed by theology (or perhaps the other way round) I find it an exciting and challenging read.
The Roman Catholic blog GodSpy has an excellent interview with him where he discusses his ideas about the church, the eucharist and politics... as well as other interesting stuff. Check it out.

HT to DW Congden.

Further on Friendship

For, in good truth, a friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends. And I will tell you why. Because many who see the sun are in darkness, but they can never be even in tribulation, who abound in friends. I speak of spiritual friends, who prefer nothing to friendship. Such was Paul, who would willingly have given his own soul, even though not asked, nay would have plunged into hell for them.With so ardent a disposition ought we to love.

John Chrysostom, Homily II on 1 Thessalonians

headline

I don't usually have much praise for the trashy, free "news"paper mX that gets handed out on Melbourne public transport of an afternoon. With a few thin columns like 'Boring but Important' and 'Doom and Gloom' to let you know what is actually going on in the world, it's largely devoted to celebrity gossip. But a recent headline showed some class. Over a front page article describing Robert Mugabe's outraged response to John Howard's decision to cancel the Australian cricket team's trip to Zimbabwe, the headline ran:
Despot Calls Kettle Black.

letters to the editor

I've been in a letter-writing mood recently, and some of my rants have even been published. But in the process, I've learned a few valuable (and slightly painful) lessons. One of the letters I wrote was to TMA, in response to a recent article on what we can learn from Wilberforce. I thought it was a good and worthwhile article, but it was entirely focused on what Wilberforce did right, and given my thoughts on this, I thought a more balanced perspective would also be helpful. So I fired off a letter that pointed out a few of Wilberforce's less positive attitudes/achievements - his confidence in the 'God-given' social order, his support for legislation to suppress and punish working-class activists and his efforts to halt the involvement of women in the abolitionist cause. I suggested that we needed to learn from his mistakes as well as his impressive successes.
The letter was published, and this edition of TMA contains two letters in response. One, from the original author of the article was pleasant, thoughtful and raised several more good points about the historical context. The second writer was not so measured. He obviously read my letter as a mean-spirited attack on a great man. He criticised my facts, my historical method, my agenda and my conclusions. He accused me of sounding like a 21st century liberal progressive, which I am horrified about (really)! I'm composing a reply that is as conciliatory as I can make it while still holding firmly to my original argument, but in the meantime I've learned a few lessons about writing to the paper. I share them with you, dear readers, in the hope that you will never offend so unintentionally.

• Never, ever send a letter to the editor from your work email, even if you are writing on a topic of personal expertise. Sending a letter with my signature block from the 'School of Historical Studies' clearly made me sound like some kind of know-it-all historian who was trying to throw my weight around. (OK, maybe I was, a bit! I've repented!)
• Making an historical point in a letter to the editor is not the same thing as making one in a journal article. It's all much more personal and (not surprisingly!) less academic. But at the same time, it's much shorter - so it's hard to be as nuanced as I'd like to be. As a result, it's easy to be/sound glib or harsh.
  
• Never underestimate the extent to which Christians feel personally protective of their historical 'heroes'. This is an issue I feel strongly about, but I realise I have to tread gently. I think Wilberforce was an amazing and inspirational figure. I also think he left us with some very unhelpful attitudes to social action that we have still not fully critiqued. But I need to respect people's loyalty and devotion to their heroes.
  

I am working on my letter in response, and I will post a version here so you can decide whether I've learned these lessons well enough!

Promises and piecrusts

What I think about the budget.

Friendship

'Frequently with groans & tears have I said before the Lord: 'O that I could meet with a friend as divinely inlightened and as faithfull as her I have lost, it would be worth going over red hot bars of iron to purchase, but tho' I know of some of the Excellent of the Earth... yet friendship is so immediately the gift of God, that we cannot form it when we will, there must be similitude of mind, a something which God alone can give...' Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, Autobiography.

I am preparing a paper on the meanings of friendship in the autobiography of Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, a famous early Methodist preacher and pastor. Bosanquet Fletcher had a series of intense friendships with other Methodist women, which were incredibly important to her in practical, spiritual and emotional ways. While she worried about the dangers of such friendships becoming idolatrous, she also celebrated the importance and value of friendship in the life of the believer, as a gift of God. It has made me conscious that I haven't seen much theological work on 'friendship'. Can anyone recommend a book or two?

Merry Men

Somewhat to my embarrassment, I've developed a bit of an addiction to the new BBC series of Robin Hood. There's lots to criticise about it. Robin himself looks far more likely to have just returned from fronting a Brit Pop band and dating Kate Moss than defending King Richard against the Saracens. The dialogue and plot are riddled with painfully obvious and ahistorical comparisons to present day concerns: When Robin is arrested by the Sheriff in episode two, Marian tells Guy of Gisborne that Robin is legally entitled to a trial. Not any more, sneers Guy. During a time of war, the security of the state is paramount: the Sheriff has suspended the laws entitling suspects to a trial, and sentenced Robin to immediate death. How dastardly! It's eye-rollingly unsubtle. And now Robin has started dropping quotes from the Qur'an to show what a new age warrior he is (he might have killed a lot of Saracens, but at least he understands their culture!).
At the end of the day, however, Robin Hood is a compelling story. I've loved it in every form - from Prince of Thieves to Men in Tights. And this series gets the central elements right: there are cackling villains and dashing heroes, the merry men are bumbling but courageous, very few people actually get killed, Marian is feisty and frequently right, and the off-scene presence of Richard the Lionheart provides the promise of ultimate restoration. So don't invite me out on Sunday nights for the next three months!

deleted post

My husband was a bit alarmed by my last post about my use of Google Books as a research short-cut, because he thought it might come back to bite me. Imagine, at my first serious job interview, a leading question about how I use Google Books! So I've deleted it. But really, my conscience is clear. I would never imply or suggest that I had read an entire book or was familiar with the details of its argument merely on the strength of reading the introduction. But I would happily use relevant quotes from a section of a book I had read - and comment on those quotes - without reading the whole book. This is standard practice and no different whether one accesses the book in the library or on Google Book. The fact that you don't always have access to the whole book on Google Book does, however, add some sense of dodgy dealing to the whole process!

Thinking, thinking

In spite of the sporadic nature of my blogging, Simon has very kindly nominated me for a 'Thinking Blogger' award. The rules require me to nominate a couple of other thoughtful bloggers, and while many of the blogs I read have already been nominated, I'm delighted to highlight a few of the blogs on my roll. In case you haven't visited them already, do check out:
Meredith at faith and place, who writes very thoughtfully on the history and theology of places and spaces, as well as a multitude of other interesting subjects. Her current posts on historians are terrific!
Greg at consequently.org, who muses on logic (and occasionally theology/politics/academic life) and keeps a fascinating list of links on all sorts of topics.
Stephen at greenflame, who writes on science, science fiction, theology and all things technological - a superb source of reflections, links and resources for anyone interested in these subjects!
Enjoy!

Bartlett and the Bishop

Over at Frankly Mr Shankly, a post that has two of my favorite thinkers in conversation!

busy month

A feeble excuse for not posting all month, but it has been busy!

The 'ethics' of torture

In Australia, public debate over the ethics of the 'war on terror' has recently focused on the situation of David Hicks to the exclusion of almost all else. While I find the treatment of Hicks - and the Australian government's long-standing unwillingness to challenge his detention - horrifying, it concerns me that Australians seem more worried about the specific case of Hicks than about the broader illegality and inhumanity of the situation at Guantanamo. This piece by the philosopher Slavoj Zizek is a powerful discussion of the issue of torture at Guantanamo - well worth reading.

History for the Church (3): The Big Picture

I have recently come across a number of on-line discussions of the question: Why don't men go to church? Given the stats - women significantly outnumber men in every Western denomination - such discussions are not new. Participants tend to suggest a number of reasons for this phenomenon, from the 'femininity' of worship styles ('men hate silence and soppy songs'), to feminism ('men are pushed around by women at church'), to the sexism of the church ('men object to the way women are treated in churches'). Suggestions such as these are hotly debated, largely by reference to personal experience. eg, 'I'm a woman and I hate soppy songs' or 'I'm a man and I love soppy songs'.
What such discussions almost never do, however, is consider the most basic of historical questions. Has it always been like this? If not, when and why did it change? Questions like these immediately force us away from micro-issues to a broader perspective. In this case, for example, a very little research will demonstrate that the gender imbalance in churches in the Western world started to become apparent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.* Interestingly, American settler churches were predominantly female almost from the beginning, whereas in Britain the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries appear to have brought about this shift. With this information, it immediately becomes obvious that soppy songs and feminism are unlikely to be highly significant factors in this change. Without proposing a definitive answer, this historical perspective suggests we might need to look to issues like industrialisation, changes in class structure, the development of new denominations and theologies, and the changing relationship between church and state. How have these changes affected the way Christians 'do' church? And, how have these changes affected what it means to be a woman or a man?
The value of considering this historical perspective lies not only in its power to explain the present. It also encourages us to look at broader, deeper meanings than those suggested by our own experience. For example, if we change our music or run 'men's-only' groups in order to attract men to church, we may indeed be successful. But we will not be asking the really difficult, and perhaps really important questions about whether our culture or the gospel determines how we as churches talk and think about what it means to be male or female, what it means to be part of a church, and how the two fit together.
This, then, is my next suggestion about the value of history for the church. In my last post I argued that looking at the past helps us ask different questions about the present. Here I am suggesting that looking at the past helps us answer questions about the present differently. History can alert us to the big picture, to the shifts in society and culture that influence us in profound but often imperceptible ways. It keeps us from allowing our own experience to dominate our interpretation of present events. At its best, it confronts us with the gospel, which is always preached and lived in a particular time and culture, to which it is always a word of both judgement and grace.

wilberforce and the evangelical left

I'm hoping to get back to my history for the church series soon, but in the meantime I noticed this interesting article, which discusses an issue I have referred to briefly: the use of William Wilberforce as a pin-up boy by evangelical lefties.

Worth reading

A trip to our local library a couple of weeks ago netted a haul of fine reading, which I have been working my way through. I can recommend:
Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt - These short stories continue Proulx's fascination with Wyoming - they read like something Garrison Keillor would write after listening to the entire works of the Bronte family on tape. A mix of humourous eccentricity and gothic chills, all rooted deeply in the plains and forests of Wyoming.
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go - reading Kazuo Ishiguro is like finding yourself being carefully wrapped in strands of sadness by a very cunning spider. This book ranges from bittersweet to melancholy to heartbreaking and back again, through the rather unlikely combination of English boarding-school tale and futuristic sci-fi. It's very good and it's very, very sad.
Kate James, Women of the Gobi - not from the library, but I bought a copy because it was written by a woman I went to school with in India. After giving up on her attempts to fit the evangelical mold of her family, Kate became fascinated by the exploits of a trio of missionary women who travelled across the Gobi Desert in the early twentieth-century. She went to China to follow in their footsteps and through her journey try to confront her own loss of faith. Travel-writing can be self-indulgent, but this is self-reflective in the best sense - funny and interesting and very moving.

History for the Church (2): Seeing our blindspots

As part of my current research, I have been reading the journals of a missionary who worked in an Aboriginal community in North Queensland at the beginning of last century. New to the mission field and newly-married, his diary records the increasing tension between the senior missionary couple, already resident in the community, and him and his wife. Finally, in the entry before his departure to establish a new mission nearby, the missionary records in painful detail his full horror at the situation he has found himself in: the senior missionaries have been repeatedly and brutally beating the Aboriginal children under their care. Through the thin walls of their adjoining houses, the junior missionary and his wife listen to the wails of the children as they are beaten, but believe themselves unable to intervene because of the authority that the senior missionaries have over them.
This is the kind of material that rarely makes it into 'church' history - in fact, standard accounts of this particular mission praise the senior missionary for his industry and piety in conventional terms. Church historians, under the onslaught of the postcolonial critique of missionary endeavours as inherently imperialist, have been generally concerned to defend the virtue of missionaries, and wary of hanging out the church's dirty linen. I think this is short-sighted. Recognising and facing up to the failures of the past seems to me a distinctively Christian duty in history, and one which will be both liberating and instructive. As my title for this post suggests, I believe a charitable but honest and critical study of our common past will allow us to identify and guard against recurrent blindspots in our theology and praxis.
For example, the account of these senior missionaries and their violence pushes us back to our theology of sin. In the Australian context, missionaries were far too often placed in situations where they had extensive authority over vulnerable people and virtually no accountability. At the same time they were poorly supported, profoundly isolated and under incredible stress. The naivety (and racism) that assumed that such situations would not regularly lead to (at best) authoritarianism and (at worst) abuse is simply incredible. But it should shock us into considering the situations today in which we assume that simply because someone is (or claims to be) a Christian, they can safely be given power without accountability. This does not mean that we view those in power - parents, church leaders, missionaries, politicians - with nothing but cynicism. But it does mean that we are not naive about their power or the potential that it creates for evil as much as for good.
History is not a panacea - it cannot show us all our blindspots, as however hard we look we are often still bound by our own agendas and assumptions. But I believe it can recall us to our theology, and force our eyes open to hard truths, helping us to repent of the sins of the past, seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and lead us to find new ways of being church that avoid repeating those sins in the present.

History for the Church (1): What is it good for?

My husband has been thinking about writing a short story set in a post-apocalyptic Southern American community which has been ravaged by some kind of virulent virus. The consequences of this virus include an inability to remember beyond the short to medium term - people in this community only retain memories of the last few years. Into this community comes a figure called 'The Historian' - someone who is able to discover and record the past experiences of individuals and the community as a whole. The question posed by the story is: How much difference does having a history make? Can a marriage be saved if an estranged couple are reminded of their romantic meeting and early happiness? Can a community find new unity and purpose when given access to the story of their past? Alternatively, can access to truth about the past be destructive?
I'm hoping Andrew will write this story - and not just because I've always wanted to read fiction with an historian as superhero! It poses the same question I am considering here, though in a different context - what is history good for in the context of the life and witness of the church? Keeping in mind that far better scholars than I have written books on this topic, I am merely going to use my next couple of posts to suggest a few reasons why the church should pay attention to history.
Let me start by saying that by 'history', I do not mean a simplistic 'theologising' of the church's past. I am not devaluing theologians, or the importance of a theological framework for Christians making sense of history. Theological history is, of course, a worthwhile kind of history - but it is an intellectual history, which emphasises the genealogy of ideas over and above broader social and cultural changes. So, for example, the Reformation can be understood primarily in terms of the theologies of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli and their interactions with the theologies of the Roman Catholic church. This is not wrong, but it is inadequate. It is inadequate because it suggests that ideas exist in a vacuum, rather than within a far broader historical context in which they can be evaluated and understood. It is also inadequate because it sees change as emanating from the ideas of a few individuals - which almost inevitably leads to a history of 'great white males'.
My own area of history provides a clear example of this problem. The history of early Methodism has, until recently, focused primarily on the thoughts and actions of John Wesley, with some attention paid to secondary figures such as Charles Wesley or John Fletcher. All of these men were very important to Methodism and all of them were fine thinkers and strategists. But only recently have scholars begun to notice that a substantial majority of early English Methodists were women. In addition to the unusual women who became preachers, women were involved in pastoring, evangelising, home visitation, class leadership, hymn-writing and the teaching of children. It is fair to say, I think, that women's pastoral and evangelistic efforts were the Methodism that many of their contemporaries encountered. Through their actions and choices women shaped Methodism in significant ways, and yet their contribution has hardly been studied. This is not just a problem for those who want to recover the place of women in church history, it is a problem for anyone who is sincerely interested in the phenomenon that was and is Methodism. Studying the theology of Methodism - understood as John Wesley's sermons, Charles Wesley's hymns, John Fletcher's writings - is not adequate to explain and evaluate the movement and its significance. Rather, we must use the tools that historians have developed - attention to social, cultural, political and geographic contexts - to explain change over time.
In the first place, then, I want to note that for good reasons Christians are concerned with theology - but theology alone will not help us to understand the past. In my next couple of posts I will go further to suggest some reasons why a broader understanding of the past is a useful thing f0r the church.

good news story

In a world full of bad news, this is well worth reading.

History For The Church

Over the next couple of weeks, I want to reflect on a question that I've been wrestling with for some time: What does it mean to study and write history for the church? That is, what do those of us who are both practising historians and practising Christians have to offer the church through our skills and training? I'm going to reflect on my own experiences as both historian and pew-sitter, but I'd also love to hear what others think - whether as historians, churchgoers, ministers, theologians or misc! What do you think historians have to offer the church?
I have deliberately chosen the title 'history for the church' for this series, because this is how I want to imagine my role as a Christian and historian: whatever the subject of my research, whatever the primary audience for my findings, in some sense I want to be orientated to serving the community of faith. This is something of a change for me. I write history that is directly concerned with the place of Christianity in past changes. But my approach to that subject is broadly 'secular' - that is, I don't seek to directly identify divine involvement in that process of change. In fact, I have been quite resistant to 'church history', which in my experience has often been history controlled by current theological and denominational agendas, to the detriment of any serious engagement with the complexities of the past. One example in evangelical circles is the tendency to portray the politically conservative anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce as some kind of left-wing progressive, which prematurely shuts down any thoughtful analysis of the distinctive strengths and weaknesses of the evangelical tradition of social involvement. Wilberforce, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King and Bono blur together as roughly equivalent figures!
In the next couple of weeks, therefore, I hope to think about some more constructive models for the church in engaging with historical questions. I want to consider 'history for the church' both at a broad, theoretical level - what is the role of history in the community of faith? - and at a very practical level - what role can historians play as members of the local and scattered church? These are big questions, and I don't promise to arrive at any comprehensive conclusions - but I hope you'll join in the ponderings!

listening to...

The felicitous combination of Christmas presents and Christmas sales has left me with a swag of great new music, which I am enjoying enormously. I can heartily recommend:

Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman's Woman
The Audreys, Between Last Night and Us
Missy Higgins, The Sound of White
Sophie Koh, Silly Thing
Wailin' Jennys, Firecracker

OK, so there's a ridiculous preponderance of women singing sweetly to the sound of strings, with just enough acidic edge to keep it from being totally saccharine. I can also recommend Sufjan Steven's Songs for Christmas (man singing sweetly to the sound of strings, with just enough acidic edge...etc.) if for no other reason than the terrific title of 'Get Behind Me Santa', one of the carols he composed. But basically, to quote The Audreys, 'If this is the state you find me in, blame it on the banjo and violin...'.

New Year, New Resolutions

I'm back at my desk after three relaxing weeks in Queensland, and along with my other fairly predictable new year's resolutions (eat more vegetables, pray more, swim more, file more, stress less, read the pile of books I collected in second-hand bookshops while on holiday) I am determined to get back into blogging. I have a couple of series in mind - one on history for the church (as opposed to 'church history'), one on WIlliam Cavanaugh's challenging book 'Torture and Eucharist' which I have recently started reading. This year I'm employed as a research fellow, working on a major project on 'missions and gender' in Australia - so that should make it into my posts as well. Thanks to those of you who have kept visiting this blog, and asked when I would get back to it - hopefully there will be something more regular for you to read from now on!