A Thoughtful History of Thought

A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ferry is an insightful and honest philosopher who sees the beauty of Christianity while remaining an atheist. He realizes that the most important question in philosophy concerns human salvation. He acknowledges the debt of the world to the Greeks and especially to Christianity and its commitment to equality based in humankind made in the image of God. He notes how the Enlightenment undermined confidence in religious authority and made man the center giving us secular humanism.

Then came Nietzsche and the postmodern, which declared the death of God and smashed confidence in human reason and science. Nietzsche replaced the "idols" of Christianity and humanism with power and the deconstruction of power. But Ferry understands that even Nietzsche couldn't live consistently with materialism because he couldn't resist value judgments and denunciations.

This leads Ferry to abandon materialism and propose a humanism without transcendence or a transcendence within immanence. This is where Ferry is the least convincing. How can you salvage transcendence if there's nothing "above our heads?" He tries to say that since death will separate us from our loved ones we must keep our relationships in good repair. Fair enough, but I'm not sure how this recaptures transcendence in anyway that can account for our value judgments.

He admits that his version of transcendence is "small beer" compared to Christianity, which teaches that salvation means victory over death through the resurrection and an everlasting life of love with God and other humans. He says he prefers Christianity over every other doctrine of salvation but can't bring himself to believe. Ferry quotes Pascal approvingly but doesn't take his wager seriously.

Pascal says if you want to believe then wager that he is, and do the things that lead to faith like attending divine worship, prayer, and reading Scripture. Ferry also dismisses the argument for God's existence from human desire. He says the fact that we want to believe something is not evidence for its existence but shows the likelihood that we will make it up. But as C. S. Lewis pointed out, the presence of a desire is "usually" evidence for the thing that fulfills that desire. We long for beauty and there are beautiful things that satisfy that desire. Plus if we are nothing more than chemical circuitry then why do we "rage against the dying of light?" If we're temporary why do we fear death and long for the eternal? I recommend reading Tim Keller's Making Sense of God along with A Brief History of Thought. Both are great but Keller rings truer.


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Speaking Up Over Endo's Silence

Silence by Shūsaku Endō
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to work through my thoughts and feelings about this historical novel. Silence is very well written and Endo's style is enjoyable. I admired the two Portuguese priests Rodrigues and Garrpe for going to Japan to find their reportedly fallen mentor Ferreira and support the Japanese Christians in their struggle against persecution from their government. The events surrounding the suffering and martyrdom of the Japanese church during the seventeenth century were deeply moving and heroically inspiring. The book is worth reading for this testimony alone. I certainly felt compassion for the weak faith of Kichijiro and longed for him to find strength. But then came the ambiguous final chapters. The rest of my review contains spoilers.
After the Japanese authorities capture Rodrigues, they explain that they have outlawed Christianity because, while it may be true for Portugal, it is not true for Japan. I cheered when Rodrigues responded, "It is precisely because truth is common to all countries and all times that we call it truth. If a true doctrine were not true alike in Portugal and Japan we could not call it 'true'." Then the "fumie" began.
The Japanese leaders had realized that getting Christians to apostatize was much more effective for defeating the faith than merely martyring its followers. The "fumie" was an image of Christ and Christians were told to step on it or face the agonizing torture of being hung upside down over a pit of filth, while blood slowly dripped out of a cut inflicted by the persecutors on the victim's forehead. Death took days. The persecutors force Rodrigues to listen to the moans of the Christians in this condition.
By striking the sheep they try to get the shepherds to apostatize. Fallen shepherds mean dispirited sheep and dispirited sheep were more likely to roll over for their persecutors. When Ferreira appears in the story as just such a fallen shepherd, he implores Rodrigues to apostatize. If he does so, the authorities have agreed to release the suffering Christians. Ferreira says that God won't do anything to help them, but if Christ were here he would apostatize for the Christians. Rodrigues had been struggling with the silence of God and other doubts throughout the novel and now it comes to a head. Under that twisted pressure Rodrigues looks at the "fumie" and hears what may or may not be the voice of Christ say that it was to be tread upon by men that he came into the world, so go ahead and trample. But as soon as Rodrigues does so a cock crows in the distance. What should the reader think?
The ambiguous book ends with Rodrigues and Ferreira taking Japanese names and wives and working with the government to identify Christian symbols and thus oppress those who bear them. Rodrigues comes to the conclusion that though Christ seemed to be silent during his trials he was always speaking through him. But the reader is left wondering what the message was. Rodrigues dies ministering forgiveness to the returning Kichijiro, and so he still seems to have faith though living in contradiction to it.
While I sympathize with weakness, I am also reminded that the current powers that be in the world at large want Christians to do exactly what the two priests do in the story: apostatize a public faith without giving up a private faith. The interpreter says, "It is only a formality. What do formalities matter. ... Only go through with the exterior form of trampling." "Go ahead and keep your faith to yourself," secularism pleas with us, "just don't bring it up anymore." Endo's book, which is now a movie directed by Martin Scorsese, seems either to serve up what the world has ordered or lament apostasy.
Endo was a Catholic Christian so it must be a lament over apostasy, but I couldn't help being disappointed. Throughout the novel, I kept wishing that Rodrigues would see that God was not silent but speaking to the Japanese Christians through his ministry and would also speak through his firmness in the face of fear. But Endo's priest doesn't realize this until after he has betrayed and then it seems the priest is on the wrong side.


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What's Wrong with Only Doing Evangelism and not Politics?

In his Politics According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, Wayne Grudem has a nice summary of Alvin Schmidt's work on Christian influence on the state. He also does a nice job critiquing the "do evangelism not politics" view represented by John MacArthur:

Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protection to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women's feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public [Christian] schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.

During the history of the church, Christians have had a decisive influence in opposing and often abolishing slavery in the Roman Empire, in Ireland, and in most of Europe (though Schmidt frankly notes that a minority of "erring" Christian teachers have supported slavery in various centuries). In England, William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, led the successful effort to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire by 1840.

In the United States, though there were vocal defenders of slavery among Christians in the South, they were vastly outnumbered by the many Christians who were ardent abolitionists, speaking, writing, and agitating constantly for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Schmidt notes note that two-thirds of the American abolitionists in the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen, and he gives numerous examples of the strong Christian commitment of several of the most influential of the antislavery crusaders .... The American civil rights movement that resulted in the outlawing of the racial segregation and discrimination was led by Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian pastor, and supported by many Christian churches and groups.

There was also strong influence from Christian ideas and influential Christians in the formulation of the Magna Carta in England (1215) and the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) in the United States. These are three of the most significant documents in the history of governments on the earth, and all three show the marks of significant Christian influence in the foundational ideas of how governments should function. These foundations for British and American government did not come about as a result of the "do evangelism, not politics" view.

Schmidt also argues that several specific components of modern views of government also had strong Christian influence in their origin and influence, such as individual human rights, individual freedom the equality of individuals before the law, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state....

Therefore I cannot agree with John MacArthur when he says, "God does not call the church to influence the culture by promoting legislation and court rulings that advance a scriptural point of view." When I look over that list of changes in governments and laws that Christians incited, I think God did call the church and thousands of Christians within the church to work to bring about these momentous improvements in human society throughout the world. Or should we say that Christians who brought about these changes were not doing so out of obedience to God? That these changes made no difference to God? This cannot be true.

MacArthur says, "Using temporal methods to promote legislative and judicial change ... is not our calling--and has no eternal value." I disagree. I believe those changes listed above were important to the God who declares, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (amos 5:24). God cares how people treat one another here on earth, and these changes in government listed above do have eternal value in God's sight.

If the Christian church had adopted the "do evangelism, not politics" view throughout its history, it would never have brought about these immeasurably valuable changes among the nations of the world. But these changes did happen, because Christians realized that if they could influence laws and governments for good, they would be obeying the command of their Lord, "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10) (Politics - According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, Zondervan, 2010, 39-51).

Leithart's Defending Constantine points out that Constantine was the first Greco-Roman ruler to recognize the church as its own distinct polis, as Augustine would later distinguish the city of God and the city of Man. This distinction was completely lost on pagans who had worshipped their emperor as a god and assumed that Rome was sacked in 410 because the gods were angry that they weren't getting their sacrifices.

Prior to the Christianization of the empire, there was no distinction much less separation of state and religion. Leithart shows that the pagan Roman Empire was drenched in sacrifice to the Roman gods from top to bottom. Today, modern pagans want to use this Christian distinction between church and state to silence the church in the world at large. Shouldn't this get us talking politics again?

Scandalizing the Scandal

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark A. Noll

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Puritans who settled Massachusetts combined heart-felt devotion to Christ with a love of theology. They practiced a vigorous intellectual life centered on the Bible and embraced cutting edge science like inoculation against disease. By the time of the First Great Awakening however, this tradition had degenerated into a formal and lifeless orthodoxy. Noll argues that during the First Great Awakening evangelicals like George Whitfield tried to revive the church with biblical preaching and a theatrical style that appealed to the masses and called for an emotional response.

Whitfield unwittingly contributed to the anti-intellectualism of the time and promoted an anti-institutional Christianity that would abandon the intellectual centers of the culture. This "biblical democratism" meant that the Bible does not belong to me as part of a historical community known as the church, but it belongs to me as an individual. For most evangelicals the Bible became a book dropped from the sky for self-help purposes (97). Jonathan Edwards resisted the anti-intellectual tendencies of experience based revivalism, but evangelicals continued to abandon the life of the mind and have been paying the price in academic credibility ever since.

Noll cites creation science as exhibit A, because it fails to allow the book of nature to help us interpret the book of Scripture. Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield were better in this regard than evangelicals who seem to think it's a virtue to abandon cutting edge scientific research to unbelievers and fight for a twenty-four hour creation days (which is not even the historical position of church fathers like St. Augustine). The abandonment of the front lines of research is one reason why evangelicals haven't developed any major research universities.

Where evangelicals did try to maintain intellectual credibility, they articulated Christian truth in the secular, rationalistic, and mechanistic language of the Enlightenment. This was a cultural accommodation that tempted the church give up the home field advantage it enjoyed during most of Western civilization. Noll calls Witherspoon, Hodge, and Warfield to account for making revelation dependent on reason for its plausibility.

In concert with the Enlightenment marginalizing Christian faith to the private sphere, Noll points out how dispensationalism, the holiness movement, and Pentecostalism compounded the scandal by putting forth a Christianity that turns the things of earth “strangely dim.” No one polishes the brass on a sinking ship, as they say. Noll reminds us that what is distinctive about American Christianity is not necessarily essential to the gospel. Thus evangelicals need to rediscover history.

Noll also points out that evangelicals have preserved the one thing that can revitalize the Christian mind--the gospel. Thus Noll is still a fan of his own tradition, and he calls evangelicals to scandalize the scandal by reentering the intellectual centers of cultural without compromising the gospel and the authorty of biblical revelation. This means reaffirming that since God is the author of both Scripture and nature the two books interpret each other as we press on. Noll also promotes a Reformation theology that embraces a comprehensive view of the world that affirms the goodness of creation and the need to redeem it with Christian action.

Since Noll published Scandal in 1994, evangelicals have continued to rediscover history and press forward with scientific research in intelligent design and the human genome project ( a la Francis Collins who doesn't seem to be a fan of Intelligent Design, :(). But much of the church growth movement continues to play to our radical individualism with its focus on self-help and personal success. Evangelical Christians still need to be challenged by Noll to scandalize the scandal.

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The Future of History

The past is the only reliable guide to the future.

The Strangeness & Familiarity of History

John Arnold, in his History: A very Short Introduction, writes:

It has been suggested (by the writer L. P. Hartley) that "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there". Douglas Adams, the science-fiction author, posits an opposite case: the past is truly a foreign country, they do things just like us. Somewhere between these two is the elusive element that attracts us to the past, and prompts us to study history.

Since they do things differently, we learn to question why we do things the way we do. Because they act nobly and mess up just like us, we can learn from them. Arnold also quotes Jean Bodin's Method for the Easy Comprehension of History (1566):

Although history has many eulogists ... yet among them no one has commended her more truthfully and appropriately than the man who called her the "master of life."

Give Me Scotland or I'll Die

On the way to Edinburgh we saw the most picturesque scenery of the Highlands and Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond is a freshwater Loch, the biggest lake in Great Britain, and the Scottish paradise of the song "The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond," whose chorus runs:

Oh, ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road,

And I'll be in Scotland afore ye;

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

The next day in Edinburgh we toured the Edinburgh Castle, which was once destroyed under order from Robert the Bruce after he retook it from the English. He couldn't spare enough men to defend it, so he had it burned except for St. Margaret's Chapel. Now that's cutting your losses!

St. Margaret is the only Sottish royal to be sainted. Her chapel still stands and holds about twenty at maximum capacity. Donnie was married there, a privilege given to soldiers, and I'm sure this delighted his father-in-law for obvious reasons. The chapel has small but gorgeous stained glass of St. Margaret and William Wallace.

The Castle dominates the skyline from below and overlooks Edinburgh from above. Castle Rock, the volcanic foundation, was incorportated into the buildings and juts up into the stonework. It was the Queen Elizabeth II's birthday when we were there, so we witnessed a twenty-one gun salute and a bagpiper and the military band played in her honor. Quite regal!

Then it was off to St. Giles Cathedral, the high kirk of Edinburgh, which is known for its hollow crown tower. It also sports a great statue of John Knox, which is ironic, because Knox removed all statues from the churches of Scotland for fear of idolatry. I wonder if he has a sense of humor about now.

In the spirit of the Scottish Reformation we moved on to the oldest house on the royal mile, which is believed by some to be Knox's last home. We found there a great presentation of the Scottish Reformation, complete with honors for Luther and Calvin, and other Scottish reformers.

Knox studied under John Major, who belonged the medieval school of nominalism in which Luther was trained. Major was one of the best scholars of his day who famously said:

It is more moment to understand aright, and clearly to lay down the truth of any matter than to use eloquent language.

This attitude toward Renaissance eloquence did not recommend him to the humanist scholars of the times, but his view of truth certainly influenced reformers like Knox.

Another of Knox's influences, George Wishart was a priest who preached for reform of the Roman church and died a martyr's death for his convictions. According to one story, Wishart's executioner asked forgiveness before the act, and Wishart kissed him saying, "Do thy duty." It is also reported that Wishart's former body guard, watching at a distance, prayed, "Lord, make me like that man." The claymore wielding guard was none other than Knox, who was later captured by Mary de Guise and sentenced to row as a galley slave aboard a British ship. Knox rowed for nineteen months praying: "God give me Scotland or I'll die." Knox wrote that their captors mocked them by shoving a likeness of the Virgin Mary in their faces, commanding them to give devotion. One of the Protestants, perhaps Knox himself, grasped the picture and threw it into the sea saying, "Let our Lady now save herself: she is light enough: let her learn to swim." Knox said that the sailors never bullied them like that again.

After Know escaped, he made it to London where he served a congregation under the Protestant King Edward VI. After the ascension of Edward's Catholic sister Mary Tudor, nicknamed bloody Mary for her burning of Protestants, Knox fled to Geneva. In Geneva, Knox preached for an English speaking congregation and learned Reformed theology and church government under Calvin. Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, but the trip took him four months because of passport problems with Elizabeth, the new Queen of England, who did not care for his latest publication: The First Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Knox's book had been aimed at the previous queen of England, the Catholic Mary Tudor and her Scottish counterpart Mary Stuart. Knox had written: "How abominable before God is the Empire or Rule of a wicked woman, yea, of a traiteresse and bastard." While Queen Elizabeth was Protestant and not a "wicked traiteresse," you can see why she didn't think much of Knox, being an illegitimate female heir herself. Knox did not even tell Calvin about the treatise and Calvin denied knowledge of it until a year after publication. Perhaps Knox was not the most tactful reformer.

When Knox finally arrived in Scotland, he spearheaded the Protestant movement that established the Presbyterian church as the Church of Scotland. His confrontations with the Catholic Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (not Bloody Mary Tudor of England) supposedly reduced her to tears (probably another blast but in person this time). The Scottish Reformation was unique among reform movements, in that it was established from below by the people rather than from above by the ruler. Knox's views were put into practice by educators who passed them on to the next generation, who would be oppressed, I mean ruled, by Mary Stuart's Catholic son James I. Getting dizzy yet?

Once we were done with our tour of Scottish Reformation history, Andrew Waller and I took the 287 step journey to the top of the magnificent Sir Walter Scott Tower. It was at times so narrow that my muscular frame ;-) had to squeeze through; especially on the way down when I ran into a group going up. Can you say claustrophobia? We snapped some great pics of Castle Rock and the city, and I finished up with a great plate of Haddock fish and chips and wine that night.

When we first met Donnie he informed me that we had been greatly amiss for not having been to Scotland before. I hope we made up for it a little, and laid the foundation for future more extensive travels.

A Claymore or a Horse!

And suddenly all that Britain which had been so long familiar to him as a scholar rose up like a solid thing. C. S. Lewis  That Hideous Strength

Our group of fifteen dwindled down to five as some headed back to the good ol' US of A, and the rest of us flew into Glasgow. The city is famous for its University, Industry, and its Enlightenment or should I say Endarkenment scholars like David Hume. As we walked out of the terminal we saw a spry little man wearing a kilt and green socks up to the knee. He was holding a sign that said Reformation Tours, and I smiled. We had the right guy! Donnie was a fiery Scott full of patriotic pride and a veritable font of Scottish history! 

He drove us to the church of the Holy Rude (Scottish for Holy Cross) in Stirling. John Knox preached here at the coronation of the young James VI of Scotland, who would become James I of England. James' mother, Mary Queen of Scots, couldn't make the ceremony however, as she was sitting in prison for opposing reform. Interestingly enough, James would later side with his mum, and rebuff the puritans. 

In 1651 guns were installed in the church tower for an assault on Stirling castle. What a picture of the separation of church and state! The church is also famous or should I say infamous for its in-house wars as well. During the 17th century the Presbyterians couldn't agree over a point of theology (imagine that!) and a partition was erected for two rival ministers and their congregations. Now that's what I call a church split! Thank the Lord that today its the Church not the Churches of the Holy Rude. 

From there we proceeded to my favorite castle -- Stirling Castle. This one was not so much for show as for defense. James V was known to descend from the heights of the castle into the town dressed as a commoner. He knew that his court would only tell him what he wanted to hear so he decided to get the news from the horse's mouth. Kind of like meeting Bill at a McDonalds in his jogging suit but different. But I digress. I ran along run along castle walls and took in the stunning vistas, which included the huge William Wallace monument across the way. The castle reminded me of a cross between Rohan and Minis Tirith, as it was built on a huge volcanic rock which overlooked the valley all around and jutted out from it in the back.

Then it was on to Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce, whose family I married into, retook Stirling Castle from the English in the famous battle of 1314. The Bruce was a great strategist and warrior and can be seen in the statues to the right (thanks to Andrew Waller's photography). "Bannockburn" means fair little river, and the Bruce used it to his advantage. He intercepted Edward II and his soldiers who were on their way to resupply Stirling castle. The Bruce's army knelt in the field to receive a blessing from the Abbot and rose to fight for their freedom. One of Edward's men ran out to meet the Bruce in single combat. The Bruce simply waited for the charge, stepped aside at the last second, and brought his axe down on the helmet so hard that the handle broke off leaving the axe head in his adversary's skull. That means that the axe clove the helmet with enough force left over to also cleave the skull! Ouch! 

The next morning the Scott's had an early breakfast, got into formation, and began marching on the English army that outnumbered the it two to one. The unprepared English backed up to reform and suddenly realized that they were trapped in the bend of that Fair-little-river. With water to the left and right and behind and the Scottish army in front, Edward sent his cavalry into the long spears where they were impaled. The English archers got off one volley before they were taken out and the hand-to-hand combat began. When the battle was over, the Scots could cross the river without getting their feet wet. I'm sure you can guess why. 

Medieval battle was gruesome, but it was actually more rare and far less destructive of human life and the environment than modern warfare and this is probably why: You had to face your opponents, look them in the eye, and be willing to die in a very personal way. It better be worth fighting over because there was no such thing as a fly over. There was no targeting non-combatants like women and children either. On the good-guys side, it was usually for self-defense of life and property or for one's neighbor. All the makings of just war, instead the total and even preemptive wars we've seen since WWI. Am I sounding nostalgic? Well if I have to fight let it be for true freedom and give me a claymore or a horse! 

Stomping Grounds

To wrap up London, we were also guests at the Tower of London where we saw the royal crown jewels, which sports the biggest cut diamond in the world and looked about the size of a lemon. The outer walls looked to be well-over ten feet thick and then you had another wall around the tower itself. The tower could only be entered by steps leading about thirty feet up the side. In an emergency the steps could be set on fire, leaving the enemy on the outside looking up. The walls also concealed perriers, which were small catapults, that launched massive projectiles that could take out three enemy soldiers at time. It turns out that only two prisoners have ever escape, and one was a priest who received a rope in a bottle of alcoholic beverage. I'll drink to that. Cheers!

In Westminster Abbey we saw Darwin's tomb in the floor of the church. At the top of the archway into the chancel there is a protruding face with tongue sticking out right above Darwin's final resting place. It turns out that the architect didn't care too much for Darwin's theory of unintelligent design! Pun intended.

On our last day in England, we spent the whole day stomping around the royal palace of Hampton Court, where Henry VIII liked to pass his time in luxurious country living. He was buff in his younger years but wasn't much for roughing it. I believe it was here or at Windsor, where Henry hosted emperor Maximillian and got into a fighting match with the young ruler. Report has it that Max knocked Henry on his bum, and Henry found it difficult to turn the other cheek. Wink, wink ....

It was hear that I had my first scone with jam and clotted creme. What a delicacy! Clotted creme is like the creamiest ice cream or frozen custard you've ever tasted, but it's served warm and doesn't melt, except in your mouth. Needless to say, it was delicious beyond belief, and I spent the rest of the day working off the calories in Henry's  sixty acres of gardens.  The gardens contained some of the most beautiful sights and smells on the trip, especially a huge walled rose garden almost the size of a football field!  

There are also over 170 chimneys of red brick and each one is of a unique and usually elaborate design. The small Tudor chapel was one of the most ornate spaces I've ever seen, and I've been in the Vatican! The whole interior reminded me of the Renaissance interiors of Italy. Henry VIII certainly set out to impress. There was also a huge maze of hedgerows where we took many wrong turns until finally popping out. 

Stay tuned for Scotland ....

Londonium

Before I speak of Scotland, there was a few more things to do in London. But before I speak of that Julius Caesar deserves an honorable mention.

He was brought back to life by the Royal Shakespeare Co. in Stratford with Hollywood special affects and sound (probably not what Shakespeare had in mind but give it a chance). The play was good but Mark Anthony was overplayed. The actor had recently done Alien vs. Predator and it seems he was still in that mode. There was no character development, as he played at the same level of emotional intensity for the whole play. This is one of my favs, and I saw the Skakespeare Co. of St.L performance a couple of years ago, where Anthony was more subtle and complex.

We also saw Romeo and Juliet at the Globe which, which by comparison, was stripped down and authentic. No elaborate stage, no mics, just say it and play it. One of my students noted that Romeo was a genetic miracle, as he was black with white parents. Then she commented that maybe he was adopted. Multicultural diversity (which is good) at the expense of realism (which is bad). What's a playgoer to do? Overall, the play was a much better performance than JC and, apart from some unnecessary bawdiness added by crass minds, was excellent.

I also forgot to mention that we toured Tolkein sites through Birmingham with a published Tolkein expert. We saw the inspiration for the two towers which was a massive clock tower whose face glows like an evil eye in the dark and a huge industrial smoke-stake further down. We had lunch with our author who wanted to know if we were creationists after he noticed us looking at the image of Darwin on a pound note. When I told him we believed in Intelligent Design he suggested we better not go there. Good, I really just wanted to hear what he had to say about Tolkien.

He was great on the influence of local geography, Oxford, and Tolkien's bio but clueless about his Christianity. All he could say was that the Lord of the Rings was pagan and that Tolkien was a complex fellow. Many intelligent pagans don't understand that there is not one inch of this world that we Christians don't reclaim for our Lord. Redeem the mythology that points to Christ and some people will still look the other way!

Later we went to St. Paul's Cathedral which is baroque. It has the second largest dome next to St. Peter's in Vatican City and we got to go up this time! The view inside and out was breathtaking. We also saw the tombs of Admiral Lord Nelson who died defeating Napoleon at Trafalgar and the Duke of Wellington who ended Napoleon's career at Waterloo. We also visited Covent Gardens, Cheapside, and went up in the London Eye and looked Big Ben in the eye!

Free?

Augustine said something like the more we are wrapped up in God's will, the more free we are. Nietzsche said something like we cannot be free unless God is dead. 

Hitchens and Historiography

While reading Is Christianity Good For the Word I found this amazing piece of historiography from Hitchens:

On the matter of Stalin and the related question of secular or atheist barbarism, I shyly call your attention to chapter seventeen of my little book [God Is Not Great], which attempts an answer to this frequently asked question. Until 1917, Russia had been ruled for centuries by an absolute monarch who was also the head of a corrupt and bigoted Orthodox Church and was supposed to possess powers somewhat more than merely human. With millions of hungry and anxious people so long stultified and so credulous, Stalin the ex-seminarian would have been a fool if he did not call upon such a reservoir of ignorance and servility, and seek to emulate his predecessor.

Leaving the insult to early twentieth century Russians aside, I would like to comment on Hitchens foray into history. According to this reasoning, history works according to what must be the case. Stalin must have committed his crimes in the name of religion because that would have been the easiest way to pull them off. Not only has Hitchens put this in two books now, but I've heard him use it in debate, and I've heard Richard Dawkins quote Hitchens on this more than once. Hitchens is a clear thinker and a brilliant writer and incredibly well read. He should know better, and he usually does better.

I don't think the atheism of Stalin's regime is any secret. A quick look at Wikipedia revealed that he became a closet atheist while in seminary and only reopened churches and allowed Christian icons during World War II, perhaps to motivate the religious. Prior to this, his policy is pretty clear. In the movie Expelled, David Berlinski quipped that atheistic Darwinism is not a sufficient cause for the crimes committed by Stalin and Hitler but it is a necessary cause.

With regard to Hitchens' historical point, Ben Franklin's witticism is apropos:

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.

Must We All Be Historians?

Yes! The fact that God revealed himself at particular times, in particular places, and in particular languages requires us to be good historians. He has put the burden on us by privileging certain historical moments and contexts. 

This flies in the face of the chronological snobbery that assumes that our advanced technology privileges us over the past. The fact that Jesus didn't come in 21st century America should humble us. It should cause us to seek the historical-grammatical understanding of Scripture for the sake of authentic personal encounter with the living God. 

For instance, biblical writers assume the covenantal understandings of signs and promise and household. This is because God revealed himself via covenants, where he made promises, gave visible signs of those promises, and worked through the authority structures of families, churches, and states. We are at such a distance from covenantal culture that we have to deprogram our individualism and program covenantal structures. We have to enter redemptive history through the word and sacraments of the church and think historically about our redemptive history. Christianity didn't begin with us, and so we must begin where Christianity began--in history! 

Ten Commandments of Historiography, VI-X

To the right you see one of my favorite historians, the late Roland Bainton. Bainton once quipped about psycho-history: "Their are grave difficulties in psychoanalyzing the dead."

6. Thou shalt not murder the historical subject with unjustified criticism, slander, or chronological snobbery.

This calls for a distinction between the historical and theological perspectives. The historical perspective means understanding a historical figure or movement according to their historical context. The theological perspective evaluates a historical figure or movement from the Christian worldview. The historical task must logically precede the theological, because we cannot evaluate fairly without first understanding accurately.

Chronological snobbery comes in two kinds. One version says recent is automatically right, and the other says some past period was perfect.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery by being unfaithful to the biblical worldview or untrue to the facts or yourself.

When academia applies pressure we must remember, “The grass withers and the flower fades but … the Word of the Lord stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

G. K. Chesterton reminds us that: "The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from … from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.” One of the reasons we read history is to escape the prejudices of the present: individualism, secularism, relativism, apathy, entertainment, experimentation, etc.

8. Thou shalt not steal from other historians but use proper documentation..

We must realize that claiming someone else’s intellectual property is theft, and that this can be righteously avoided by giving the author’s full name, title, & facts of publication.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against the historical record.

If we only acknowledge our presuppositions and realize how they affect our interpretation, we can love our enemies by treating them fairly.

When will we realize that correlation does not equal causation, and that historical periods are transitional and not absolute divisions.

Beware of the hasty generalization and compare what is best in Christianity to what is worst in another religion.

10. Thou shalt not covet a grand synthesis or grandiose conclusions.

I love this quote from Thomas Carlyle: “Listening from the distance of centuries, across the death chasms and howling kingdoms of decay, it is not easy to catch everything.”

We should look for characteristic features and not assume universal traits. History escapes all our attempts of complete mastery, and we should humbly admit that reality always gets the best of us. Why isn't ignorance one of the academic virtues?

The Ten Commandments of Historiography, I-V

A few years ago a friend and I decided to come up with a memorable way to teach our students how to think historically and then do responsible historiography. Thus was born the Ten Commandments of historiography.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before the God of history.

The point is that earthly heroes, no matter how inspiring, make disappointing gods. This means we should have the courage to tell history warts and all. This is compatible with a Christian view of history defined as the record of man’s dominion over creation under the providence of a sovereign and all wise God and God’s redemptive actions for his glory and the salvation of his people (I am indebted to Rev. and Headmaster Chris Baker for this definition).

2. Thou shalt not make any graven historical image by idolizing periods or people.

This leads to our working definition of historiography: the reconstruction of history based upon trace evidence recovered from the study of historical sources. It also leads to the distinction of historiography from hagiography, which refers to idolizing and idealizing history and historical figures.

3. Thou shalt not take the primary sources name in vain by using only secondary sources to interpret them.

A primary source is an original source of information about an historical subject, and a secondary source is not original, but based upon research of primary sources. The primacy should be given to primary sources, while not reglecting secondary sources as insightful guides or foils.

4. Remember the historical Sabbath by refreshing yourself with God’s great victories, godly heroes, and historical fiction.

This brings us to the now neglected discipline of moral philosophy, which means learning wisdom from history. Moderns considered themselves too sophisticated to stoop to this and committed themselves to scientific objectivity. But we are undeniably moral creatures who draw moral or immoral conclusions.

The historical imagination plays a role in historiography. History cannot be reduced to a science because it is also an art that requires a good imagination.

5. Honor your historical fathers and mothers by emulating their virtues and abandoning their vices.

A few classic quotes: Cicero, “Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child.”

George Santayana, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.”

Karl Jaspers, “Who I am and where I belong I first learned to know from the mirror of history.”

Did Ockham Shave?

The medieval philosopher and theologian William of Ockham is probably most known for what has been called "Ockham's razor." While I would like to know if Ockham was beardless, I am more interested in his philosophical razor. By applying the razor one is able to shave away unnecessary parts of an explanation and thus arrive at the truth by a more direct route. Ockham said: Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate or "Do not posit plurality without necessity." In other words, don’t multiply assumptions or entities you don’t need to explain something. The Razor also suggests that if two arguments seem equal in all other respects, the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true.

In presenting this to my Humanities class I looked for some illustrations but to no avail. Finally I came up with two of my own and covet any feedback you might have.

Which is the faster route to your destination, the interstate or a more direct path along secondary roads? If you look at a map you might conclude the shorter route but then you realize that the speed limit is 35 mph but the interstate is 65 mph. You decide that the shorter distance is still preferable, but then you realize that you have to assume hitting every green light, no trains, & no pedestrians in the crosswalks. You begin to realize that you must assume too many contingencies and go with the interstate as the fastest route.

Atheists argue that a naturalistic explanation of the universe makes God the “unnecessary hypothesis.” God the creator is an assumption that we do not need in the light of naturalism. Theists argue that a purely naturalistic explanation of the universe requires more assumptions such as life evolving from non-living matter and that matter is eternal though the physical universe did not exist prior to the big bang. Irreducible complexity, from the Intelligent Design movement, is essentially an application of Ockham’s razor. It argues that organisms have complex systems that can work only when fully formed. It is simpler to explain this phenomenon by appealing to special creation. Otherwise, you have to posit natural selection of non-usable parts in light of a more complex whole that will appear in the distant future.

Do you think Ockham shaves like this?