As I stated in an article entitled My Dog Ate My Bible (and Other Lame Excuses), it is of indisputable importance for modern Christians to have some sense of the history of Christianity.  But, unfortunately, many Christians “are merely looking for inspiring stories of the saints of old so they can be motivated in their own walks.  Some read it to look for skeletons in the closet, so they can revile the church or some faction therein.  A few will read just enough to gather evidence to either prove or disprove some off-the-wall theological point or to find the origins of a doctrinal debate.”

            I would like to take this opportunity to expand on the point in that section of the article (it is linked below, if you care to go back and see all that was originally said) and give a few more positive and beneficial ways to approach this subject.  Some of these studies and mental exercises require a certain amount of imagination coupled with an understanding of the larger contexts that figure into each development.  After that I would like to take the reader to a place in history and point out a particular mistake that was made, and then we can see if we are making that same mistake again.

The context of cultural history

            The public schools for the most part do a terrible job of making history a thing that students find worth their time to think about.  Despite the teachers’ best efforts, it too often comes across as the rote memorization of facts and figures, of people, places and endless dates.  But beyond this, I see two other injustices committed—one is that there is such a heavy emphasis on political events, wars, and civic leaders that students can too easily come away with the impression that these are the only prominent factors in the shaping of our journey through history.  The other problem is that when most other aspects of history are taught, they are too often narrowly confined to a specific subject, such as scientific topics or only one form of the arts.

            Once upon a time while I was in a conversation with a friend who taught art and art history, he began to talk about a well-known music composer whom he had known personally.  However, he hardly said anything about the composer’s music, but rather about the influences from the other arts that led to the composer’s philosophy of music, and then in turn about other musicians and artists who were influenced by him.  It was a memorable conversation, not simply because of the way he enlightened me about the composer’s life, but more because of the changing of perspective that happened in my thinking about the topic in general.  I finally began to realize what the study of history should be all about, and it was nothing like what I had gotten in school.

            If a person is going to actually “get it” when he or she undertakes any study of history, the only method that works to the greatest good is the more comprehensive approach of studying all the influences of the prevailing culture at the particular time targeted.  This can turn into quite a balancing act: how long does such a period last?  What are the factors that actually affected how people lived, and what caste of people are we dealing with—peasants or kings?  Was there only one type of music being heard, or only one style of literature being written there?  What geographical boundaries must we consider as relevant, and what might the political attitudes have been concerning the freedom of artistic activity?  Conversely, how might artistic and cultural influences have affected the political leaders of that time?  Who were the people listening to?  What did they laugh at?  I admit that it takes some practice to see how deep into this water one can get and then wade around without drowning, but this swim is worth the effort.

            The periods of cultural history tend to be much more neatly defined in textbooks than in real life.  Often, especially in periods of transition, the overlap of two conflicting cultures leads to confusion among the citizens and heightened conflict between special interest groups.  Even in instances when there is no apparent cultural transition happening within a society, there are still dissenting voices that stir emotions and gain a following among the people for causes great and small.  These are as often apolitical as they are political, seeking attention for purposes of self-expression of ideas or perhaps to illuminate some spectacle of their own creation.

Who we usually remember

            What kinds of people generally make history in some way?  We like to think in terms of the famous and the infamous, the heroes and the villains, the winners and the losers; but this comparative view is a result of the aforementioned problems in the way we have most likely learned how to view history.  Seeing all these things in a cultural context might give us a different perspective on the people that we should consider as historically significant.  Many of the history-makers in art, philosophy, and occasionally science tend to be seen by historians in their relationship to the style or school of thought to which they contribute.  Among these, three types of people will emerge.

            The first of these are the pioneers; the ones who begin a new and original idea or style.  They may be the inventors of some technology of art or music and for the new style that that invention accommodates.  Many artists achieve notoriety by coming up with novel ways of expressing life, scientists become known for their unique theories and discoveries about the universe, and philosophers integrate their approach for a unique view of everything.  For example, if asked about the pioneers of rock ‘n roll, most would immediately think of Elvis Presley, yet our younger readers might be hard pressed to recall certain other influential names such as Little Richard, Bill Haley and the Comets, Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry.  Students of philosophy know the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, but really should look a century earlier to find that Soren Kierkegaard is better remembered as the “father of existentialism.”  Edouard Manet led a group of pioneering young artists which included Renoir, Monet and Cezanne in forming a school of impressionistic art in Paris.  In England, the romantic style of poetry began with the publishing of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and this style was then advanced by them along with the rest of the “Big Six” poets.

            Next are the definers; those who work in a style that already has a foothold and create within it a paradigm for others to follow.  In this view, it is William Shakespeare who shows us English drama at its highest point of development, even though there had previously been other accomplished playwrights.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart certainly did not invent classical music, but hearing any of his works will demonstrate for the listener this style in its purest and best representative form.  Near Paris, the Chateau de Maisons was designed by Francois Mansart who imported baroque architecture from Italy and helped establish it in France, and as such it was a grand example of Europe’s seventeenth century building style.

            Finally there are the extenders; the ones who develop a defined style beyond its earlier confines and bring new depth or further elaboration to it.  Some of these have taken their style to such new levels that they can be said to create a bridge into a new style—a fresh creation from the old for which they then become the pioneers.  Others work in a defined style to uncover new layers of possibility within it.  An ancient Greek sculptor named Lysippos built on the Classical platform of Polykleitos to create a greater realism of proportion in his sculptures which paved the way for the transition into the Hellenistic Period.  Starting from the foundations of Mozart’s classical music, Ludwig von Beethoven extended the emotional range of composing to the point where it surpassed the boundaries of the older style and helped to form the basis of the romantic period of music which followed into the nineteenth century.  Plato worked from the starting point established by Socrates to extend Greek philosophy into new areas such as politics and art.  Aficionados of jazz will recognize Stan Kenton as a primary figure in “progressive jazz,” which raised the genre to new heights.

Influences

            Once we see who the cultural leaders are at a given place and at a certain point in time, whether they are political, philosophical, artistic, or otherwise, we can then compose a snapshot of the culture at that particular juncture.  This certainly involves more than knowing the dates of political events or the persons who made scientific discoveries; it requires a comprehensive yet general knowledge of the great mosaic of influences on the direction of the attitudes of the people.  And we can do this in a way that does not bog us down with a plethora of details, many of which wouldn’t matter anyway.  From this vantage point we can now see ourselves in the place of the people of the particular time and place we are looking into.  We can know to a reasonable degree what they are thinking, what they are seeing, what they are hearing—and as an actor might say, we can “play the period.”

            Because we are dealing with church history primarily here, the cultural backdrop that we have now assembled needs to have the additional elements of the theological developments of that time, and not only from Christianity but also from any other faith that may happen to come into play.  Often we can see several movements operating side by side in the church at one time, and this allows us to hear the prominent voices which influenced the debates within the various streams of thought.  It is from here that we can now “get inside the Church’s head” and know what concerned the people in their everyday life and how it related to what they might be hearing on Sundays.

            God granted us an imagination as a tool, not a distraction.  It would be academic at this point to speak of how to try to explain Star Wars to Mark Twain or the New Deal to Jefferson, though I admit that those can be fun mental calisthenics.  For our purposes it is much more constructive to find out the way that God worked within (and many times in spite of) the culture surrounding His people, and see how He raised up His pioneers, definers, and extenders for the work of His Kingdom.  The results are very much like those which we would call a background study for a section of the Bible, but of course now we are concentrating on what has transpired since then and are taking the concept of background study to another level by looking at a greater extent at the people and influences in a society.  This perspective will allow us to look more objectively at the Church’s triumphs, struggles and mistakes.

A failure of foresight

            Let us now take a look at America in the 1920’s.  We had just prevailed in World War I (called “the war that made the world safe for democracy”) and a new era of prosperity and technological development, along with an attitude of personal indulgence, was setting in.  Jazz was being pioneered by greats such as Louis Armstrong, while vaudeville was entertaining the masses in theatres everywhere.  Flappers were doing the Charleston and Babe Ruth was thrilling baseball fans at parks across the country.  Art Deco was the latest rage and movies were advanced with the additions of both color and sound to film.  Traveling was becoming easier with the expansion of the automobile industry, and air travel made a great leap forward when Charles Lindbergh (a.k.a. “Lucky Lindy”) made his daring transatlantic solo flight.

            Politically, the 19th amendment brought about suffrage for women and swelled the voting rosters.  Prohibition was the law, yet speakeasies dotted the urban landscape and became a breeding ground for organized crime.  The business and economic world made building and maintaining a fortune relatively easy for the tycoon while labor unions strove to ensure that the factory worker also got his fair share.

            The Church in America was preoccupied with its own changes.  Pentecostalism was expanding mostly in the South and creating controversy wherever it appeared.  The famous Scopes trial of 1925 captured the nation’s attention and fueled the debate over evolution.  Theologian Karl Barth began teaching in Germany a theology which came to be known as “neoorthodoxy,” which followed many of the transcendentalist ideas of Kierkegaard, and the seeds of these teachings were beginning to enter American thought.  At the other end of the theological spectrum were the fundamentalists and evangelicals who countered the more liberal views of the “social gospel.”

            However, these merry times came to an abrupt halt with the stock market crash of October 1929.  People by the thousands found themselves without their savings, their jobs and their dignity.  But the Church was no better prepared for this calamity than the population in general.  Before this, if there was a hospital, an orphanage, a “poorhouse” or a soup kitchen, it was mainly the Church who was providing such care.  But now the many distractions which had caused us to focus on dividing ourselves into our many sects, pay attention to the trivialities of doctrinal particulars, and stay out of koinonia fellowship with each other caught up with us and rendered us impotent.  Before we knew it, there was a New Deal offered to the American people as a new administration stepped in to fill the void in public relief work.

            American Christendom had been caught with its proverbial “pants down,” and we didn’t even realize it.  We had gotten ourselves so caught up in our internal bickering and in our attempts to fight the world on its own terms rather than God’s that we could not respond where and when we were needed most.  The Church was in the same economic predicament in the 1930’s as everyone else, with no hope of a way out other than that which everyone else was relying upon—the government dole.  That unique form of fellowship that had been participated in by the primitive church and by the occasional underground churches throughout history had been forsaken and forgotten in favor of the prevalent rugged individualism and the church-as-enterprise mentality.  We thought that if God was going to do something about all this, He was going to have to use the government, not His own plan for voluntary community, sharing, and good works toward those within and without.

            So today the Church looks at the morass of reckless government spending, the attitude of demand by citizens for government entitlements, and the impossibility of getting it all paid for in a reasonable way, and we shake our heads.  We know that we have become powerless, and we somehow accept it.  Many of us now have so little faith that God would address these matters through us that we adopt the same worldly attitude that I once heard expressed by the question “Isn’t that what we have a government for?”

A failure of hindsight

            Recent figures from Barna Research as reported in the February 2010 issue of Christianity Today tell us that when asked who should take the lead in addressing poverty, nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) said that it should be either federal, state or local governments, while “each individual citizen” received 18%, churches and non-profit organizations received a mere 8% (4% for each) and businesses and additional categories received the remainder.  Clearly, Americans do not see the Church as being in the “business” of good works (sadly nor do Christians); they have come not to expect such kinds of help from religion.

            George Bernard Shaw once said, “Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history” (the earlier article, My Dog Ate My Bible (and Other Lame Excuses), contains several similar quotes).  Yet we seem content and even relieved because we do not have to attend to others’ problems; we can just go on with our petty religious bickering and our attention to debating trivialities while those with true needs see our irrelevance for what it really is.

            Does it really say somewhere that they will know that we are a Christian nation by the fact that we let our government do our loving for us?  The prescription of strong families, strong churches, and strong communities can bring our society back to a place where the big federal programs are not necessary.  It can still be possible to revive the dormant concept of koinonia and to rebuild, at least on a local or community level, what is lacking in the current situation.  The difficult part will be to convince ourselves, the surrounding culture and our civic leaders that we can handle it.