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.
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.
3 comments:
Good thoughts about the recovering of all sorts of stories and weaving together a rich tapestry of history.
I love those big charts/timelines you can get that bring multiple strands of history together. So you can follow a strand of European history and see how it fits against other strands - or follow a theological strand and see what's happening scientifically or socio-politically at the same time.
The story idea sounds interesting. Similar, but not the same, as Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s "A Canticle for Leibowitz" (1959), and parts of television episodes written by J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5 episode "Deconstruction of Falling Stars" - the Ranger bit, and Jeremiah episode "The Mysterious Mister Smith" http://www.petergaley.com/tmf/206/index.htm )
I love the idea of the historian or archivist as a central character. What about post-apocalyptic Melbourne though?
Not just history, but also theology is made richer when it gets beyond a history of ideas and starts to also consider praxis. This has been one of the huge contributions of liberation theology in the last few decades.
Thanks to you both - I'll be posting on the topic again this weekend, am finding less time to blog than I would like!
Stephen, yes - when I was involved in a church history subject last year we got the students to develop their own time lines, which would include events in 'church history' narrowly understood, but also whatever other events they were interested in - so, for example, some students would include events in the history of music or politics or technology. When they shared their timelines with each other it made for very interesting discussions about context.
Byron - I absolutely agree. But of course for some theologians that emphasis on context or praxis is seen as a betrayal of true Biblical theology.
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