The title of a paper I found, written by E Harris Harbison and published in Church History in 1952 which sounds as if it pulls together some of my ideas and questions.
The writer described a similar situation to the one in the Gilkey paper I posted on yesterday, then goes on to consider what this might mean for the writing of history.
He begins thus...
If we ask what effect all this has had upon the actual writing of history, upon those who make their living by historical teaching and research, or what effect it may be expected to have upon them in the visible future, the answer may simply be "none." The ordinary professional historian is usually a practicing positivist. If he has a philosophy of history, he feels uneasy about it, particularly in the presence of his colleagues. Carl Becker once wrote that he would "not willingly charge a reputable historian with a Philosophy of History" - and a Theology of History would probably be an even an more heinous charge. But historians are remarkably sensitive to what goes on across academic fences. At one time or another they have owed much, both in the way of conceptual framework and of methodology, to Renaissance Humanism, Newtonian physics, Darwinian biology, Freudian psychology, and recently, the social sciences. It is not beyond possibility that they may be influenced sooner or later by what transpires from the camp of theologians.
Church History Vol 21, No 2, Jun 1952 p102-3
He then offers four effects which he perceives as 'already becoming clear'
- A new interest in the history of the Christian understanding of history
- New insights into the history of Christian thought and institutions
- A more sympathtic approach to the treatment of Christianity by secular historians
- An increasing tendency by Christian historians to make their Christian presuppositions more explicit
Half a century later, I wonder what he would say about these ideas.
My recent reading on Bibilical hermeneutics (Murray Rae) suggested use of theological categories for interpretting history. This idea - which was intriguing - seemed to be presented as novel, yet reading papers published 25-50 years ago, it is all already there. I am not sure that an interest in the 'history of Christian understandings of history' is all that well established, let alone that there is all that much recent work (though obviously I'd need to check that out). There is some interest, for sure, but not loads.
I'm not totally sure what he means by item 2, but it seems to suggest studies in the theologies of the great and good - Luther is given as an example. Certainly there is always this kind of thing going on, and the Paternoster series of Studies in Baptist History and Thought in name as a minimum, and I'm sure more so in fact, fits this category.
Item three, I don't feel qualified to comment upon, though a recent conversation with a practising Christian Church Historian and theologian elicited a comment to this effect. It will be interesting for those alive a century from now to see how sympathetic or otherwise historians are in recording events early this century, espceically where religious fundamentalism is involved...
Lastly, I am far from convinced that his fourth suggestion is evident in the Baptist history I read, or certainly not in the sense of an evident eschatalogical viewpoint or use of theological language or concepts.
The paper ends with these sentences...
Whether [a Christian understanding of the 'meaning of history'] will appreciably affect the writing of history in the next generation may depend upon the turn taken by world events. A tragic turn will almost certainly increase the numbers of those members of the historical profession who seek the meaning of tragedy in the Christian understanding of history
op cit page 106
Post 9/11 and 7/7, post Rwanda, post tsunami, post the African AIDS pandemic... how much tragedy does it need? And would it now be a Christian 'meaning of history' that would be adopted? And if so would that be a western Christian view? I guess Harbison could not have conceived the multi-cultural, pluralist, post-everything situation of the early 21st century. I am not convinced that, beyond a few 'narrow shallows' who see all tragedy as 'signs of the end times' (or, in the fictional world of Messiah, create tragedy to endeavour to hasten the end) that this is so.
So, overall, I am none the wiser on 'how' to write history that is more helpfully, overtly theological, only aware that there is a long line of others who think/thought it ought to be feasible!