Leap Day 2.29.2024

    Leap day and leap year are not really a surprise. We know that they are coming. They can, however, sneak up on you when you are concentrating on other things. And so, I have a rare month with five blog essays. This one is a “free swim” because whilst planning I clearly failed to look at the calendar. 

    We have been talking about History. We have examined Historiography as an advantage for the Church because, unlike some religious traditions our story contends that it actually occurred. We also considered how to best tell that story in light of the fact that past, present, and future each inform one another, that there is no direct line-of-sight to the past, and that our story, when strategically told has, can, and is the best of all possible stories. What is left to say about the importance of historiographical storytelling for the Church in the twenty-first century? Perhaps the key is to be reminded of internal threats to a healthy understanding of History which impede our ability to learn from History and create an imbalance in our conception of how to incorporate other historical data into our ongoing telling of the Biblical story. 

Hyper-Literalism

    Everything we know and understand about the world requires interpretation; that is, hermeneutics. There are no uninterpreted realities. The gravest threat to understanding historical processes is the same threat to understanding the Bible. Literalism is a hermeneutic of flattening. Language is robbed of nuance and depth with every thought or concept reduced to a data point. Literalism in Biblical studies turns parables into history. In Historiography it tends to turn fact into fable. 

    Whether interpreting a historiographical text or scripture, the goal is the same, to discover the intent of the author, to understand her motivations, and to comprehend the story she tells in contextually appropriate terms that inform the present.

    Hyper-literalism substitutes the subjective categories of the interpreter for the objectively discernible categories of the author. There are some instances when this is less problematic. Parables and other clear analogical forms are easy to spot. What of other issues that require close reading of the text prior to determining the author’s assumptions, categories, and goals?  These decisions impact the interpreter’s understanding of the text. If one pre-decides that everything is literal until proved otherwise the burden of proof is moved from an inspired text to the mind of the interpreter. Bad for history. Worse for the Bible.  

Covenantal Category-Mistakes

    In the NT the Kingdom promises made to Israel are realized in the Church. Christian or Biblical Nationalism is not a Biblical category because Jesus intended the Church to be the saving institution through which the Gospel would be proclaimed in this fallen creation—not a literal (see above) nation-state. 

    This should free the Church of national, racial, and linguistic biases. Rather, one of the central tasks of the Christian faith since the fourth century has been to free itself of recurring imprisonments to the dominant cultural and political forces. The tensions we experience today are nothing new. What is often forgotten is that various stains of “Christian Nationalism” have been tried throughout the last two millennia and they share the same salient fact that whenever and wherever it has reared its ugly head Christian nationalism has:

1. Betrayed the Lordship of Christ. 

2. Failed. 

    This common mistake can be easily and thoroughly documented. From the “conversion” of Constantine through “City on a Hill” New England, through current misguided attempts to forge an unholy union between Church and state this approach has failed repeatedly. Why? Because Jesus didn’t intend for His Kingdom to work that way. Historical departures from the Biblical pattern appear to work temporarily but they always fail. 

    Here is an instance where we must be sound interpreters of both the Bible and the historiographical record. History shows that every attempt to turn the faith of the NT into an ethnic, national, or social creed fails. I often put the equation like this: “Kingdom+Empire=Empire.” Always. Without fail.  Ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ask Mary Dyer. If you do not know who Mary Dyer was…shame on you! That is part of the problem. We simply don’t know how historical processes work. Not because we can’t but because we prefer to perpetrate the failed fictions of past attempts to do what we’ve already decided we want to do. In this, History is both a reminder and a warning. 

     Beyond that, the Bible makes it clear that forms of ethnocentric Christianity, nationalistic Christianity, socio-linguistic Christianity—whatever you might want to attempt—are unbiblical. No further adjectival modification is needed to clarify our relationship to Jesus. He is Lord. That is all. Nothing more. 

“Meme-ification”

    Not to be confused with the somewhat but not quite entirely different concept of mummification. Mummification is when all historiographical and Biblical knowledge is wrapped in gauze bandages and immobilized at the stage it was in the “good old days.” Mummification always looks to the past as a positive model for how to move forward into the future. Advocates of Mummification ignore uncomfortable facts and rely upon storytellers who share their romantic views. This process turns historical and Biblical studies into rigid, categorical antiquities drained of the capacity to inform, much less transform the present.  

    No, I’m not talking about mummified views which are admired without being rethought for decades, I’m talking about Memes, which tend to be created without any thought whatsoever—antique or otherwise. These risks to understanding both history and the Bible are not insurmountable. They do take work. Hard, diligent, disciplined work. 

    Memes and other short-form storytelling methods rob even the truest of truths of enough appropriate context for either judgment or application. The internet is a wonderful place to explore. It provides a gateway to a world of information. Once you get past the inaccurate summaries, advertisements, and the memes. One must drill down, beyond the facade of the Web, with some kind of an idea of how to weigh various sources of information before it can be a bountiful, and beneficial resource. 

    Let me use the idea of a Library as a corollary analogy. Memes, even when they are true, are like an adult trying to find all their necessary information in the Children’s section of the Library. Accuracy isn’t the problem; depth is the problem. 

    Historical and Biblical information, the stories that form us if they are dead and dried out as a mummy, or as shallow as a meme can hardly help us to develop a healthy understanding of the story of Jesus, the central concern of our mutual faith. 

Conclusion

    Understanding requires work. Comparison. Evaluation. Contemplation. Work. There is no shortcut to understanding. Literalism is the refuge of the lazy. Categorical errors, the lair of the knave. Mummies are the delight of curiosity seekers. Memes, a toy for fools. 

    The tools of hermeneutics, in the hands of a dedicated student, help us to understand the intent and motivations of the authors by whom our Father inspired scripture. These same tools help us to make sense of the other stories that define our culture and the intellectual climate of our broader society. It’s time to graduate from the children’s section of the Library. 

The Past is always Past, and the present is Nearly So 2.23.2024

     There are few historical persons so well documented as Jesus. Few ancient events are as tellingly narrated as His crucifixion. There is no other global movement anchored in such tragic and violent adversity whose history has been more formative and story more powerfully told.  None of which matters if in our time we cannot interpret the Biblical story accurately, compellingly, and connectedly.  The key to connection is largely determined by whether and how we integrate the Biblical witness into other historiographical story forms. 

    We are always looking in one direction or another. Backward, forward, to either side, up, or down. Our historical gaze reminds us that the past is past. It cannot be repeated. The present is upon us, but the future beckons, and soon the present will be past. 

    A hermeneutic of history recognizes that historical causality and contingency are always present. Our understanding is evolving, and the ultimate test is in our capacity to tell the tales that form us in a way that resonates in the human heart and recreates the human spirit.  

    There is a tension in the New Testament that is evident in all subsequent Early Christian literature. In the resurrection of Jesus, promises of eternal life have become personified. The concept of renewed life was so difficult to grasp that many religious cultures chose instead some kind of continuum of rebirth. The story of Jesus’ resurrection; a past event empowering our present and future, has been the defining characteristic of our storytelling ever since. J.R.R. Tolkien was fond of saying something to the effect that after Easter, humans will not tolerate stories without a happy ending.  We embrace the present as the place where the storied past meets and molds the anticipated future. The words “Jesus is alive!” bookend the reality described by our story. 

    The past is always past. But it still has impact. The future is still to come. The present was once awaited with expectation, and it will soon be the past. History is filled with beauty and diversity as well as a bland, indistinguishable ugliness. And it cannot be fixed. Only narrated. The task of a hermeneutic of History is to tell as accurately and as powerfully as we can stories that can change the world. The most impactful stories are those which are true. The past is past. We make it present through this process of storytelling. 

    This is why the constellation of Biblical, Historical, and Theological truth must be in alignment. Sadly, in the contemporary Church, this is often not the case. When Biblical, Theological, and Historical understanding is compromised, we risk detaching our tale-telling from the historic and ongoing storytelling of the ancient faith. There are many threats to our faithful narration of our story. 

    Entertainment for example. Contemporary American pulpits are not exactly filled with stories of surrender, sacrifice, and service. They should be. That was the defining message of Jesus. These touchstones have not fared all that well throughout history. And whereas there is no long-term precedent for a “theology of entertainment”, one certainly seems to be emerging around us. 

    Power is another example. Jesus was struggling with this misunderstanding of the Kingdom long before He even made it to the cross. Between the resurrection and ascension, questions about the relationship between discipleship and power still dominated discussions among the Apostles. The two millennia since have been a constant referendum on the possibility that His Kingdom built on love and submission, could work. The problem is not that the world doubts it. The problem is that the Church often behaves as if she doubts it. 

    We cannot recreate the past. And we shouldn’t want to. Each era has its own burden to bear its own ongoing negotiation with past and future seeking leverage over the present. This tangle may not seem to present itself or show the symptoms of being a hermeneutical problem, yet it is.  What we make of the present is largely forged from the past and either helps or hinders the future. The past is always past, and the present is nearly so. What tale have you, what tale are you, what tale will you tell?

Line of Sight 2.15.2024

     We can read about historical events, we can hear about them, and we can examine artifacts from the past, but we don’t see or otherwise experience the past. There is no line of sight that allows us to see a past event. We may read a speech but we do not hear a historical person. We may survey a situation, but we do not experience the preliminaries, the outcomes, or the actuality of what occurred.  All historical understanding, regardless of your ideology or agenda is mediated, secondary, tertiary, or even further removed. And it comes to you interpreted. It is participatory to the extent that we trust those who have mediated the past to us and for us. Our job as interpreters is to examine how past events are mediated, interrogating those primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, and weighing all interpretations to arrive at the most probable. Then after we have done our homework, we are positioned to make judgments. Those judgements are posterior to and exterior of the events they describe. They are a part of the tapestry of interpretive mediation through which the past is available to us. Even a video of a past event is an interpretive preservation of an event—not the event itself. 

    One of the jobs of interpretation; Biblical, Historical, or Theological is to disabuse practitioners that there is a magical line of sight to the past, rather than overarching interpretive strategies. Whether or not this agrees with your ideology, principles, or personal totem is irrelevant. You cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell the past. You can only observe second-hand through the mediation of others. 

    Facts are temperamental and stubborn.  Left to its own devices data is resistant to manipulation. Only rarely and comparatively recently has historiography been thought of as a matter of facts and data. For virtually all our collective human history, story has been the means for communicating what we now smugly call “history.” Stories require storytellers and storytellers have several ways of manipulating the arc of their story to accomplish their purposes. One of the most duplicitous turns of the storyteller is assuring his readers or auditors that he has broken the spell of the past and can provide direct, line of sight access to history. This manipulative historical turn is usually known as “the real truth.” Or its practitioners malign other storytellers by assuring their audience that the other guy’s story is “revisionist.” My story is what “actually happened.”  My story is authentic. Their story is inauthentic. To-ma-to. To-mah-to. Blah, Blah, Blah. Everyone is telling a story. Some could be lying. All may be lying. The one common element, the one thing all tale-tellers share is that no one has is line of sight. History comes to us in some mediated form. If we are to learn from history we must engage in critical analysis of as many stories as possible to get the best glimpse of the past that we can, considering the restraints of normal, historical processes; in this case, also known as reality. We engage in this adventurous hermeneutic because we believe. 

    For Christians, the Bible is our baseline storybook. We measure all other stories against this storybook of stories about God’s saving engagement with His fallen creation. For us, the Biblical story is the perfect test case for how we view all other stories in the historical inventory. We don’t have any more line of sight to Biblical history than anything that precedes or follows. Our hermeneutic of Scripture and our hermeneutic of History should be virtually the same, except for acknowledging the inspired, authoritative nature of Scripture. For both, we should use every available tool to help us understand. And then the Christian will use scripture to measure both the veracity and utility of the historical stories he needs to understand. 

    Again, all this is told to us or shown to us, because we do not have access to the past—only reports of the past. Some, at this juncture, might choose historical nihilism which is basically the sulking and desperate declaration that nothing I did not witness actually happened. These sentiments might work in chic academic settings or in the company of the similarly confused, but for those in the real world, this kind of historical nihilism is just uninformed, juvenile, silliness. 

    The Christian contention, the contention of most rational people is that the past is knowable, and our present task is to interrogate the storytellers to determine who we can trust and who we should dismiss. As I said before some could be lying, and all may be lying. The corollaries to those statements are just as logically powerful. None could be lying. All may be telling the truth. Our job is to figure out who is trying to dupe us and who is trying to inform us. How about this: All may tell part of the “truth”. History like beauty, may after all be in the eye of the beholder. 

    Historical reading requires breadth, depth, curiosity, and empathy. One cannot exclude or include storytellers based on ideological kinship. If you don’t read that “historical revisionism”, as pointless as it seems, you may be missing more than someone else’s exercise in axe-grinding. You may miss facts. You may be overlooking relevant data. You may miss nuance. You may miss the parts of the story they got right by pure chance and the gravitational pull of events. And by ignoring their story you are impoverishing your own capacity to judge the story they are telling over and against the story you prefer.

Fumbling Our Advantage 2.8.2024

     Despite the constant prattling of the doomsayers, Biblical language and stories are embedded in our culture. Though layers may have accrued to obscure the origin for some, and others hold that origin in some measure of contempt, the story of David and Goliath (for example) will always be a Biblical story and only the wholly ignorant or obtuse among us would claim otherwise. Biblical language and concepts also abound in our culture. Though “Peter at the Pearly Gates” may not be wholly accurate; Peter being delegated some kind of custodial responsibility over heavenly matters does derive from the Biblical worldview. How many movies, purporting to save humanity, seize upon the Biblical trope of Noah and the Ark, to provide an escape from whatever dramatic trauma is about to overwhelm humanity? In like manner, the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are so well known that virtually any educated person, regardless of religious preferences or lack thereof, would be thought uncouth if they could not locate the source if not the chapter and verse for these now proverbial stories. 

    Rather than seizing upon this advantage the Church, for reasons I have spent a lifetime trying to discern, routinely fumbles our control of these stories because we persistently fail to treasure and tell them as life-changing stories. 

    Try as I might I simply cannot think of any reason for us to always fumble our advantages in the name of Biblical and Historical thinking. Far too many Christians have a knee-jerk reaction to those who only partly know these Biblical stories. We are quick to correct, chide, and even mock. This is hardly a Christian response and every time I hear of such an episode, in my mind’s eye I see the elliptical spheroid slithering out of the ball-carriers hand. There is a proper way to engage those who know the language of the stories but not the intent. This presumes that you care more about reaching the lost than winning an argument, owning the other, or feeling superior. 

    This speaks not only to our handling of the Biblical Text but also to our hermeneutic of History. If we fail to see the capacity of Scripture to become inculcated in cultural linguistic patterns how more will our blundering prevent us from seeing human, structural, and other historical errors?

    What good is a worldview if it misses the most obvious things occurring around us? How does a Biblical understanding make a difference when we cannot comprehend the patterns of historical processes that define our own cultural heritage? Let me offer some preliminary viewpoints that will help us to construct a hermeneutic of history that can help us navigate sometimes bedeviling cultural developments. 

Expectations

    We will likely find in history what we expect. If we think all historians are lying, we will be paranoid. If we think everyone, from any possible perspective, was writing the whole, unvarnished truth we will be naive. Neither alternative is helpful. 

    What we should expect is that everyone writing about the past is telling a story to advance their understanding of the causes and effects of historical processes. A hermeneutic of history needs to be robust enough to ask every author, expert, or chronicler the right questions to sift out both their motives and accuracy. 

    At the heart of discerning these expectations will be an understanding of Story that is flexible enough to absorb many differing ways to approach the same events and evidence without privileging some evidence and marginalizing others. The word for this process is “critical” which is another way of describing intellectual honesty functioning to curb both curiosity and prior conviction. When we have our expectations in check we can move on to another analytical tool. 

Categories

    Without categories, it is virtually impossible to assemble any kind of data into information. If every fact is a thing unto itself, virtually the whole process of thinking simply bogs down. Natural language itself has parts of speech that are intended to categorize what different kinds of words do. 

    Concerning history, we need several kinds of categories to help us discern between different kinds of information. We need literary categories: a work may be a narrative, historical fiction, epic, geographic treatise, or written in praise of heroes. Each of these literary types can document historical processes or people. We also need chronological categories: Centuries, Eras, Epochs. We require categories to discern background from foreground issues. We need categories of social and cross-cultural analysis. 

    This process is not as complex as the description might imply. We transparently use categorical thinking every day. The difference in this circumstance is that we want to be critically aware of the categories of analysis we are using. 

Contexts

    A third tool is contexts, and here the plural is of utmost importance. Every event that has ever happened has occurred in multiple overlapping contexts. Various historical approaches may not, actually be ideologically driven at all. They simply assume different contexts. Consequently, a hermeneutic of history needs to both unwind those contexts to examine them individually and be capable of examining the historical phenomena in question amid the twisted cultural contexts in which they actually occurred.

    With these structural tools in place, we are ready to come to grips with historiographical research and what it means to “understand history”. This is where, for many of us, it gets tricky. Having mastered the tools of analysis we lack the humility of synthesis which is where the scattered contexts, expectations, and categories resolve themselves once again into the original story. To that end, there are a few circumstances I wish to close with, a few fumbles that we need to learn to avoid. 

1. Dissection: Misunderstanding history by dismembering the specimen and not putting it back together. The past, particularly as we read about it, is more than an aggregation of facts and data. Most historical writing tells a story. Ignoring that story is like scattering a frog all over the laboratory. It is both reckless and pointless. 

2. Scavenger Hunt: Ransacking the past for “useable stuff” while ignoring what we don’t want or like. There are unpleasant truths in the past. Overlooking or ignoring them is not honest. 

3. Privileging the Present: Misunderstanding how the present is built upon the past and dismissing the past merely because of its “pastness.” Look at any list of the “greatest players of all time.” In just about any sport. Eighty-five percent will have been active within 10 years of the person making the list. When we project this onto our understanding of history it judges everything by current fad, fancy, or focus.

4. Mythologizing the past: Everything was better, truer, fairer, faster, and more beautiful in the Good ol’ days. Ever heard of diphtheria? 

5. Missing the Forrest for the trees & vice versa. Yes, the details matter. And yes, the big picture matters. A mature understanding of history seeks to integrate the macro and microstructures of the past. The best historiographical writing masters this.

    With respect to Christianity, we need to know what happened in the past. We need to know for the broader Christian community as well as our own tribe. We need to look at past events not as a spectator but as someone whose continuing faith and practice exist downstream from the events of our forefathers. We should unashamedly look at the mistakes made by previous generations of believers as well as their victories and successes. How else would we learn from the past? Why even study it if we don’t intend to take their stories seriously? 

    There is really no excuse in the twenty-first century for fumbling our advantage. We have all the tools we need to understand the story of God’s people since the close of the New Testament era. We can illustrate the stories of Scripture by applying the very truths learned by prior generations as we seek to inculcate our generation of churches with Biblical faith. Ignorance of the great stories of faith and the lessons to be learned is a turnover that we cannot afford to make if we intend to advance the cause to which we are called. The first discipline to be embraced is honesty. The second is joy at not only inheriting the story but inhabiting it. 

The Strategy of Story 2.1.2024

     To really understand history, you have to understand stories. The reason for remembering past events, for most of human history boiled down to some form of self-interest. Stories were told to remember ancestors, enumerate grievances, to provide a reminder of origins. Past events, communicated through stories were events that mattered. Because they mattered storytelling became a necessary art. Bother before and after the invention of writing the linguistic shaping of reality belonged to storytellers. 

    Let me remind you, that our broad topic of discussion for this year has been identifying and rectifying the Church's growing ignorance of the Bible, Theology, and History.  During February we will consider history. 

    All history, but particularly what is called Church History.⁠ (1) Is relevant to our discussion. The discipline of History (thanks to our German-speaking friends) can be divided (I’ll dispense with the technical terms (since they are in German)) into what actually happened and what was written to have happened. When people talk about the “winners” writing history they are referring to the latter phenomenon. And here is the issue which bedevils us; unless you were present at a given historical event your only access to the latter is the former. History admits to two classes of observation. Those who were there and those who were told about it. There is no other accessibility to the past. 

    What then, do history and story have in common? Everything. Whether for the sake of entertainment, educating the young, creating community consensus, preserving the names and exploits of the past, or inculcating shared values it is the storyteller who controls the dialogue. Because if no one wants to listen, the past dies the slow, despairing death of apathy.

    The Bible provides God’s revelation to His people in various story forms. Some of these forms are more historical than others. Narrative is historical whereas Psalm is liturgical, and Parable is an instructive, wisdom form. Regardless of form, each can contain historical data, and here is the rub, the one which clothes the facts in the most compelling story will be remembered regardless of the form or genre in which the story is told. 

    We spent January considering hermeneutics as it applies to the Bible. During February we examine the hermeneutics of History, for the story told by historians needs interpretation just as much as the stories read in Scripture. And the one who tells the most compelling story controls the dialogue. So, we begin considering the Strategy of Story, at least concerning historical understanding. 

    Strategic thinking concerns itself with the big picture. It envisions an enterprise as a connected, complete, whole. Logistics provides the means, and tactics establish processes and practices; all based upon the end goal, the vision, and the perceived successful outcome of strategy. 

    Discussing the strategy of story, from a historiographical perspective is then an examines the preliminary context of goals, guides, and goads. Goals determine the formal nature of the historical story. Guides determine the trusted sources of the story. Goads are the characters—protagonist, antagonist, hero, and narrator who move the story along. Historical writing has human, literary, and structural benchmarks. All of these contribute to the strategy of story each historian adheres to. In short, the historian determines where the story comes from, how it will be told, and who gets to tell it. 

    Now we confront the central issue. All historians have some kind of agenda. It is this agenda that underlies their selected strategy and all subsequent tactical decisions. And you can’t critically evaluate any of it until the story is told. Our own understanding of history reminds us that not all storytellers choose strategies for the good of the future. Hitler comes to mind as someone who followed a pretty clear strategy of story, leading the whole world to the brink. It was not until Europe was nearly in flames that people realized that what they took to be a heroic story was in fact, a tragedy. Epic it seems is a strategy that can be used to further virtually any strategy regardless of its morality. 

    One of our first goals when considering the strategy of story, perhaps even prior to weighing truth claims, should be evaluating its appeal as story. Not all good stories are true, though they may contain truths. It is by taking a step back and trying to evaluate things from the conceivable goals of a historian/storyteller that we protect culture from falling prey to compellingly told untruths. 

    When we fail to evaluate stories according to their strategic goals using only the barest conceptions of verifiability or narrative artifice, we become vulnerable to propaganda, disinformation, distraction, distortion, and delusion. Basically, everything that Neil Postman warned us about 40 years ago. 

When you watch a movie…there is a strategy to the story.

When you watch the news…there is a strategy to the story.

When you read a novel…there is a strategy to the story.

When you read a resume… there is a strategy to the story.

When you read the Bible…yep.

When you read a Biography…Oh Yeah!

When you read a history book that presumes to be “neutral” or without spin…Then, most of all.

    Either hermeneutics is a curse or a blessing. There is no human endeavor that releases us from the requirement to interpret, understand, and apply. There are two options. First are all the varieties of historical skepticism. Everyone’s lying. Everyone is scheming. No one can be trusted. The past is a far-off country we can never visit and from whose citizens we can never learn. Historical skepticism is the most parasitic of diseases. It could never have existed except for those who critically examined the past sifting the stories they read or heard for factual facts amid the tantalizing tales. Historical skepticism does not deal with the strategy of story it avoids it. By renouncing all understanding in a nihilistic frenzy of resignation it has set the stage for the overt politicization of virtually every area of knowledge. 

    The second option is to do the work. Yep. We come back to this. Read voluminously. Read slowly. Read curiously. Read naively. Read for entertainment. Read for information. Read for knowledge. The more you read, the better you get at it and soon you’ll find yourself doing the kind of critical work that allows you to determine whether a compelling storyteller is lying, confused, earnest, overwhelmed, detached, emotionally involved, duped, dutiful, worshipful, or simply wrong. Making these sorts of judgments requires broad reading in every area of the curriculum so that you can evaluate the strategic motivation of a given storyteller. Oftentimes the degree of difference between a historical novelist, for example, and an actual historian is a matter of intentional framing. The facts in each may be equally true. The reality illustrated equally lifelike. It is the intent that makes one fiction and the other history. They are both story. 

    Constantly engaging in the work of interpretation—immersing ourselves in what Mortimer Adler called the “Great Conversation” prepares us for evaluating all the stories we encounter so that we might critically sift the real, tangible, actual, and verifiable from purely intentional fiction. You are going to interpret. Why not intentionally rather than accidentally? When you approach any story (whether the medium is purely textual, visual, or aural) You will be required to compare, contrast, interrogate, and integrate your thinking. All of this, with respect to the stories that compose our shared history, so that you (and me) may make a sober determination of which storytellers are most compelling. In doing this kind of hard work we enable ourselves to solidly base our understanding of the present—the stories we are telling—on the great stories of the past, all in service to the best, truest story of all.

 

1 In the “Christian West” it seems that to talk of Christian History is bit of an oxymoron. Like most Ducks swim, most History in the West is Christian in at least a cultural sense.