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My blog posts revolve around my interests and vocation as a historian: the intersection of history and contemporary church life, the intersection of history and contemporary politics, serendipitous discoveries in archives or on research trips, publications and research projects, upcoming conferences, and speaking engagements.
I sometimes blog for two other organizations, the Canadian Baptist Historical Society and the Centre for Post-Christendom Studies. The views expressed in these blogs represent the views of the authors, and not necessarily those of any organizations with which they are associated. |
 Before my masters or doctoral students go into a theses defence we usually sit down (or Zoom) to talk about what to do before, during, and after the defence. Having chaired, or been primary, secondary, or external examiner in over 50 masters and doctoral theses defences I figured it was time to put some of these thoughts to paper.
Here is a list of some things that I think are important…and the list may keep evolving as I continue in the exciting high octane and meaningful world of thesis defences.
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 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vittore_carpaccio,_visione_di_sant%27agostino_01.jpg The subject of cessationism sometimes comes up in my courses, especially my course entitled “The Lives of the Saints.” Protestant students who hold to a view that charismatic gifts and miracles did not cease when the “age of the apostles” ended are often looking for theological allies to support their belief in the possibility of miracles today. And for some they think St. Augustine is just the man to have on their side (after all, he was the progenitor of the theology of the Protestant reformers).
But there are surprises lurking in those dusty church history texts… Such as when St. Augustine says “why can the dead do such great things?[1]  I was recently going through some of my dad’s possessions and found a small book that contained a collection of C. S. Lewis’ essays entitled The Weight of Glory (originally published in 1949). Chapter one of the book is named “The Weight of Glory” and it was an address originally delivered as a sermon in Oxford during the dark days of the Second World War.
There is much to commend in the brief sermon-turned-chapter. However, the two things that immediately came to mind related to technology and secularism.  Two things happened last week that quickly became related in my mind.
First, I finished my course entitled “The World and Writings of John Wesley” by looking at what happened in subsequent generations after the death of John Wesley. The story has some highs – such as widespread nineteenth century revivals or the globalization of Methodism in the twentieth century. It also has some lows – such as the demise of Methodism in the West. And I used some commentary by David Hempton to provide some analysis, especially of the lows. Second, I started reading about the 2021 Canadian census results that portrayed a continuation of the decline of Christianity in Canada. Brian Clarke and Stuart Macdonald have previously noted that decline,[1] and the most recent census simply reinforces that narrative of downward trajectory.[2] What linked the two things in my mind was the reality of a downward spiral of a once vibrant faith. The post-Christendom reality of the Western world has been readily identified by a host of scholars and has been lamented by the faithful who sit in empty pews on Sunday. So what went wrong?  “Hardly anything worse could take place in Germany.” Not exactly the words you would expect to hear about the treatment of Canadian citizens in their own judicial system, but those feelings describe the experience of some Canadians during the last world war.
A while ago I was doing research at the United Church Archives, Vancouver School of Theology, BC, and came across some letters dealing with the United Church’s attempts to assist some of its members in trouble with authorities over their conscientious objector status. We Canadians often like to think that we are exceptional, with a special respect for minority opinions. Yet, as the following account of a conscientious objector (CO) in the Second World War indicates, Canadian respect for dissent and issues related to conscience have been abandoned in a time of crisis.  Globe and Mail, 11 September 1939 I have no memory of my grandfather on my mother’s side (he died when I was 2 years old). He had a German-American background, moved to Niagara Falls, married Ethel (my grandmother), worked in Hamilton (Ontario), had three daughters (one being my mother, June), and by all accounts was a kind Christian gentleman. He also travelled around southern Ontario churches singing in a male quartet. Apparently, they were quite popular, or so the story goes.
I am proud to be named after him. But what I did not know until recently was that he not only sang but also composed music. A while ago I was excited to find in some old family pictures a copy of a wartime hymn he wrote sometime during the Second World War.  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clonard_RC_Church_St_Finian_06_Detail_2007_08_26.jpg I recently stumbled across an Irish saint that caused me to pause in amazement.
I am thrilled when I get 30 people in a course. Yet recently I read of medieval Irish monk who attracted 3,000 students to his monastery – he was a veritable “rock star” professor. And that should certainly put things in perspective, as well as keep me humble.  For those of us in the West looking at the place of the church in society the words of Galadriel, a royal elf of the woods of Lothlórien in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, ring true.
“The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it.” We know it – those of us who are older see how different things are, yet even the younger ones among us have seen rapid social changes that reflect the tectonic shifts in our culture. We are a post-Christendom culture. It can be discouraging to see such loss, and one can easily be overwhelmed or filled with despair at the task ahead. So what is a way forward? Here is a sermon I recently delivered at Acadia Divinity College that looks at three Irish monks and what they have to say to us today about carrying out the work of the church in the midst of a collapsing world. Click Here  A few years ago, I was perusing the wartime Baptist Times (a British Baptist weekly periodical much like a newspaper) and stumbled across an insert that printed attempts by British and German Baptists to argue the merits of their nation’s cause in the Great War (1914-1918). Both sides took great pains to argue their position, making their claims based on their understanding of history, politics, war reports, and experience.
The context for the exchange of opinions seems to have been the British Baptists writing to Swedish Baptists about how they understood Britain to have the cause of justice on its side. German Baptists then decided to write how they saw the war from their perspective – arguing that the German cause was just. British Baptists then went point by point refuting the German arguments. And, as the images below indicate, the Baptist Times printed a blow-by-blow record of the exchanges. |
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