In chapter 1, Fea outlines the task of a historian with five Cs: (1) “chronicle change over time ,” (2) “study the past in context ,” (3) pay attention to “ causality ” and (4) “ contingency ,” and remember that “the past is complex. First, it helped me understand what good historians do. And as a history buff, I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend this book, for several reasons. Fea pitches his book primarily to college students interested in the study of history as a major, but also to history teachers and history buffs. He blogs regularly at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. An evangelical Christian teaching at an evangelical college, he has written or edited several books, including Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction, The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in Early America, and Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s Vocation. Paperback / Kindle Why study history? John Fea sets out to answer this question in his eponymous new book, which is subtitled, “reflecting on the importance of the past.” Fea is associate professor of American history and chair of the history department at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Thank you for supporting our publishing ministry.John Fea, Why Study History? Reflecting on the Importance of the Past (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013). To keep reading, subscribe-subscriptions begin at $4.95-or log in. This article is available to Christian Century magazine subscribers only. The experiences and ideas of Christians over the past two millennia mattered little. In 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson told the graduates of Harvard Divinity School that “the need was never greater of new revelation than now.” Human beings should throw off the shackles of the past and find the divine within, he said. And Americans have often been suspicious of inherited wisdom. They thought that Christians could dispense with centuries of history and return to the purity of the early church.
The “restorationist” Christians of the early 19th century rejected denominationalism. In America, Christians have often discarded much of that past. Even as they point us to a future final consummation of God’s kingdom, they encourage us to tell our children about the wondrous things God has done in the past. Our scriptures tell of the ancient interactions between God and a chosen people.
Ours is a historical faith, oriented around the life of a man who lived 2,000 years ago. Americans are enchanted with the past but suspicious of formal attempts to study it.Ĭhristians should love history. But they also tend to fall asleep in history class. They watch the History Channel and episodes of a costume drama like Downton Abbey, and they flock to Civil War battlefields and compile their genealogies on.
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