The culture question: “All things to all men” or “Be ye separate”?

This is the second of my “Grateful to the Dead: The Diary of Christian History Professor” series on Christianity Today International’s history site a few years back. It deals with the Christ-and-culture question:

#2: “All things to all men” or “Be ye separate”?
Chris Armstrong

Dear folks,

In the last installment of “Grateful to the Dead: The Diary of a Christian History Professor,” I took a cue from the Emergent movement and argued that we have to go back to the past to get to the future. (Some Emergents call this sort of thing “Vintage faith“; others, borrowing a phrase from the scholar of historical worship Robert Webber, use the term “Ancient-future faith.”)

More specifically, I argued that we need to read the lives of “the saints”—our forebears, who translated the gospel for their cultures by teaching, preaching, and especially living it—for clues to how we should be translating the gospel for our own cultures.

But now we face a serious question: Is the whole idea of “translating the gospel for culture” off-base to begin with?

The woman detective novelist who was one of Karl Barth’s favorite theologians

The Christianity Today history blog has just posted a piece by me on the British mystery author and lay theologian  Dorothy L. Sayers. And yes, the great modern theologian Karl Barth not only enjoyed Sayers’s detective stories, but called her one of the “outstanding British theologians.” He himself translated three of her essays into German.

Potpourri of the day: Civil War evangelists, Pool of Siloam and ancient monks’ cells discovered, the sublime Angelico, Christianity & European culture, and “the abbot and the pendulum”

Here’s another one of those “candy bowls” containing brief news items on Christian-historical topics. I compiled this one for issue 88 (on C. S. Lewis) of Christian History & Biography:

Living History
Compiled by Chris Armstrong

The War for Souls

With its own national association (www.cwreenactors.com) and magazine (www.campchase.com) serving an estimated 50,000 re–enactors in the U.S., Civil War re–enactment thrives today. However, until a few years ago, the re–enactors who worked so painstakingly to replicate each detail accurately often overlooked an entire group of participants. On the battlefields and in the camps, these men fought a different war—the war for souls—and some paid the ultimate price. They were the roughly 1,200 to 1,400 Confederate chaplains, 3,000 Union chaplains, and 5,000 Christian Commission volunteers.

Alan Farley won’t let reenactors forget the chaplains or the faith that animated them. Farley, an evangelist who began attending these events as a child in 1984, now portrays General Lee’s chaplain—and presents the gospel—at Virginia reenactments.

When world leaders pray (part II): Charlemagne through Elizabeth I

To be clear, the events that triggered this pair of posted articles, and the articles themselves, emerged back in 2003. But the shelf-life of the historical material in these posts is, hopefully, still not exceeded:

When World Leaders Pray, Part II
Tony Blair’s spin-doctors worried when he recently “outed” himself as a Christian. But what impact has Christianity really had on our leaders?
Chris Armstrong

Several weeks ago, British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated he would be judged on the Iraq war by “my Maker.” This gave some of his closest advisors fits. But the record shows that some of the West’s greatest leaders have been praying people—and that this has not necessarily been a bad thing.

In the last post, we looked at the Roman emperors Constantine, Theodosius I, and Justinian I. This week, we jump forward in time to three pious European leaders: the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, the French King Louis IX, and England’s Elizabeth I.

When world leaders pray (part I): the record of Constantine and a couple of other “Christian Roman Emperors”

My students and I have been talking a lot lately about the role of secular leaders vis-a-vis the church–especially the early church. A while back some words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair launched me into some research and reflections on this same topic–and a brief survey of the records of emperors Constantine, Theodosius I, and Justinian I. The results follow:

(Then, not content with putting together one article on this, I went on to look at some later leaders–so this post will be followed by a “part II“):

When World Leaders Pray

Some observers are upset with Tony Blair’s recent public avowal of faith. But what impact has Christianity really had on our leaders?

Chris Armstrong

“Humility, conscience, and responsibility.” These are the traits London Times writer Michael Gove believes political leaders learn when they submit themselves to God.

Gove made this statement last week after Tony Blair publicly stated that he would be judged on the Iraq war by “my Maker.” Blair’s closest advisors flinched—believing such an admission of faith by a Prime Minister “plays badly.” These are the same advisors who insisted the PM not end his Iraq war broadcast with “God bless you,” because “people don’t want chaplains pushing stuff down their throats.”

Sadly, the British spin-doctors are probably right to worry. After all, ever since the European public found out about the Bible study classes being held at the White House, many have been convinced Bush is “a fundamentalist crazy.” “To listen to the European reaction,” says Gove, “one might have thought they were bringing back witch trials in Massachusetts.”

The Ten Commandments, How Deep Our Debt

Though the public display of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and government officials facing off over the Ten Commandments is long over, the legacy of the Decalogue in English jurisprudence and society carries on, as it has for hundreds of years:

The Ten Commandments, How Deep Our Debt
The words of the Decalogue run like a river through not only the church but also English and American history.
Chris Armstrong

No matter where they stand on Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s fight to keep his Ten Commandments monument on display at the Alabama Judicial Building, Americans agree that it is symbolic. But symbolic of what?

I will not try to prove Moore’s claim that the Decalogue is “the moral foundation of law in this nation.” But, without question, it is central to Jewish and Christian morality. And, also without question, it is deeply embedded in Western—especially Anglo-American—culture.

Revival in secular New England? Yes, even this is possible

Sporadically we hear rumors of religious revival on the college campuses of one of America’s most notoriously secular regions: New England. The Boston Globe published one such report of Ivy League revival in 2003 (as of today, Jan 29, 2010, the link still works, and the article is still fascinating). Shocking? Not really. It’s just the latest in a long line of campus revivals in the land of the Unitarian Brahmins. The Globe article gave me the excuse (like I really needed it) to look into the story of those revivals.

An exciting New England development today: the campus of D. L. Moody’s Northfield College has now been purchased for the C S Lewis Foundation–the group that owns Lewis’s home, the Kilns, in England, and runs a study center there. Soon, Moody’s old stomping grounds will host of a new “great books” college (check out the videos at that link) named after Lewis.

Can Anything Good Come Out of New England?
Evangelical revival in the land of the liberal Brahmins may not be as historically odd as we suppose.
Chris Armstrong

A recent article in the Boston Globe discerns a spiritual “New Day” in New England—a day in which evangelical Christianity has penetrated even the liberal fortress of Harvard and stands poised for a full-blown regional revival.

To some modern-day evangelicals this may seem a bizarre—if welcome—a piece of news. On a level with God’s bulletin to Jonah that Nineveh would at last be saved. New England, such skeptics would say, long ago slid into a spiritual funk that has got to have John Winthrop (of Puritan “City on a Hill” fame) rolling around in his grave.

Never mind the glory days of Jonathan Edwards and his Northampton, Massachusetts-based Great Awakening (see last week’s newsletter), the evangelical skeptic might say. In a time when Harvard Divinity School students eviscerate their Bibles and celebrate “Coming Out Day” to affirm their homosexual colleagues, this spiritual legacy is long buried. No, the Unitarians and other liberals have, the critic would say, definitively won the day in that erstwhile blessed region, and God has passed over the land of his chosen (Puritan) children, moving on to revive hearts where the prospects seem more promising.

Muscular Christianity’s prodigal son, college sports

With the Super Bowl looming, and Christianity Today putting out a big “sports issue,” it’s time to weigh in with a church-historical take. Yes, this one’s on college sports rather than pro sports. But hey, March Madness is just around the corner.

And yes, I can do a history riff on anything. That’s one of the fun things about being a historian.

(Note: this story was originally posted on Christianity Today’s website a few years back, when a scandal involving Baylor’s basketball program had just hit the front pages)

Muscular Christianity’s Prodigal Son, College Sports
In the wake of a basketball scandal at a prominent Christian university, we take time to remember the Christian roots of college athletics
Chris Armstrong

Inappropriate payments and academic fudging on behalf of college athletes. Rampant performance-enhancing and recreational drug use. Cursing, furniture-throwing coaches. Medically questionable practice regimens that may have contributed to players’ deaths. The past decade has not been kind to college sports.

Texas’s Baylor University has been pursuing a very public quest to become America’s “Protestant Notre Dame”—a top-ranked research university with an explicit Christian commitment. But recent revelations of drug use and under-the-table scholarship payments in the athletics program, on the heels of a basketball player’s tragic death, are currently distracting everyone’s attention.

Other than the fact that this scandal is occurring at a Christian school, this feels like “old news”—sadly familiar in the big-money world of Division I college sports. But it may lead the faithful to ask a new question: Should a Christian student think twice before getting involved in high-profile college sports like basketball or football? What kind of values will he or she learn in that setting?

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this question would have been unthinkable. Why?

Johann Gutenberg’s imprint on history, and God’s imprint on Gutenberg

Guess I’m feeling controversial these days. Here’s another post that wanders into contested territory: the theological interpretation of historical events. It’s my take on Johann Gutenberg.

I’m interested here not so much in the way Gutenberg changed the world with his invention of the printing press, or the way his invention really made the Reformation possible . . . That’s all textbook stuff.

But did you know that Johann was something of a huckster–and that many of the first documents printed on his press were those indulgences that so troubled Luther? Or that he pushed so hard to get his invention up and running that he overextended himself financially and lost all profit from it? Or that in the wake of this personal disaster, he seems to have turned to the begging friars–the Franciscans–becoming a lay camp-follower?

In other words, there was more to this guy than we learn in the textbooks, and I think his story provides great grist for theological reflection:

A God’s-Eye View of Gutenberg
The rise, fall, and redemption of the Father of the Information Age.
By Chris Armstrong

August 24, 1456. On or near this day, the great Bible from Johann Gutenberg’s press emerged complete from the bindery in Mainz, Germany. Few events merit the breathless statement, “and the world would never be the same!” But the creation of the first book printed with movable type is one of them. Thinking about this event and how it has contributed to the spread of the Gospel around the globe, I muse, “God surely worked through Gutenberg!”

But then I hesitate. Historians, even Christian ones, don’t like to say too much about where the finger of God descended to do this or that on earth.

Re-rooting spirituality in theology: a book worth reading

Alister McGrath and Timothy George’s book For All the Saints came out a few years ago and didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved. As a historian, I am not deterred from lauding something just because it is a few (or a few hundred) years old, so here we go:

You should read this book if you are concerned with the “sanctification gap” in evangelical culture–that is, if you think evangelical thought and evangelical life have become woefully separated, favoring either thought over life or life over thought, to the detriment of both:

Christian History Corner: For All the Saints
A fascinating book reminds us to get our heads and hearts together, in the company of the cloud of witnesses.
By Chris Armstrong

“Evangelicals,” gather round. Fellow-travelers and outsiders, lend an ear. For we are about to talk about evangelicalism’s “dirty little secret.” It’s what historian Richard Lovelace has called “the Sanctification Gap.” And it was the subject of a conference held in October, 2000 at Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama, which has now resulted in a book worth reading.

The book, like the conference, is titled For All the Saints: Evangelical Theology and Christian Spirituality (Westminster John Knox, 2003).