In the latest issue of Books & Culture (which all readers should consider subscribing to!) I reviewed Jay Green’s Christian Historiography: Five Rival Versions (Baylor University Press, 2015). It’s the best entry into the discussion about the various ways Christians understand and use history, developed by Green over a decade of teaching historiography to undergraduate history majors at Covenant College
Green’s taxonomy of five approaches seeks to capture the various ways in which self-consciously Christian historians have interpreted the past in light of their faith. Historical study, according to various historians, should
- take religion seriously (a view held by all historians of religion today);
- be approached as an application of background faith commitments (think Marsden and Noll);
- be viewed an application of Christian ethics (history is a form of moral inquiry and an expression of moral philosophy, with a view toward restoring American virtue and advancing Christian values);
- be a form of Christian apologetics (from the notoriously irresponsible like David Barton to the reasonable and respected like Rodney Stark);
- be a search for God (assuming a necessary connection between the doctrine of providence and its application to ordinary events not recorded in Scripture, such that history filled with evidence of God’s purpose and plans).
Green summarizes each view, citing its representatives, then registers some weaknesses. He moves from the widely accepted to the most disputed among professional historians. He reserves his strongest criticism for the providentialists, who represent the final version.
Here is an excerpt of my review where I cover this section in particular.
First, I summarize his summary:
Though he clearly affirms his belief in divine providence and acknowledges the desire to see the hand of God in history, he also writes that there is little in this historical method worth salvaging. Suggesting that the problems are too many to enumerate, he summarizes his central concerns by stating that providentialism is practically impossible and theologically impermissible. It assumes too much about human knowledge, underestimates the inscrutability of God, downplays the mysteriousness of divine purposes, and fails to adequately distinguish between ordinary or general providence and extraordinary or special providence. Green ultimately concludes that providentialism may not even be a historical method at all, but rather a crudely effective rhetorical strategy for worldview maintenance.
I then highlight the positive of this approach, in my view:
Green’s arguments should be seriously considered by any Christian, especially those who assume that providentialism is self-evidently true and that the only justification for not using it is the idolatrous quest for academic respectability among secular peers. Too many books of Christian history, especially at the popular level, are written as if God’s specific purposes are self-evident in particular events and as if there are no limits to what interpreters in a fallen world can know of God’s revelation outside of Scripture.
Finally, I explain that while I am sympathetic to Green’s arguments, they left me with some questions.
First, would his convictions about the limitations of human knowledge and the inscrutability of divine action prevent him from offering tentative interpretations of God’s providential purposes even in the history of his own life or in the lives of his family or students? If not, might it be possible for the Christian historian to offer tentative interpretations of God’s work in ordinary history, with appropriate qualifications?
Green might respond that the audience and the public nature of history writing and the complexity of the situations and the standards of evidence are all different. Or he might respond that this is the job of the theologian and not the historian. Or he might respond that such an approach would not be acceptable in the wider academy, thus limiting the historian’s opportunities. All of these would be valid responses, but they do not really feature into his categorical critique. When reading this chapter I wondered how Green might respond to someone like David Bebbington—a Christian historian widely respected among his secular peers—who argues that the Christian historian “should take providence into account.”
Second, does Green’s analysis imply that all Christian attempts to explicitly incorporate providence into historical accounts are inherently problematic?
There are a number of respected historians who affirm a role for providential interpretations in historical study, shaped in part by the calling of the historian and the makeup of the audience being addressed. Bebbington suggests that “a providential framework should be more explicit in some pieces of writing than in others.” And yet, “there is sometimes a need for the providential framework of history to be portrayed without reserve. For the church, it provides the encouragement of knowing that hitherto the Lord has helped his people.” While Bebbington believes that “the Christian historian is not obliged to tell the whole truth as he sees it in every piece of historical writing,” he seems to open the door for a chastened audience-dependent providentialism, which Green does not directly address.
You should pick up the book if you are at all interested in the question of Christianity and historiography. Despite the qualms—or more properly, questions—registered above, I think it’s a fantastic and important book.
My full review is here (paywall to read the whole thing).
