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. |
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.
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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.
Gordie Howe is one of the most famous hockey players in hockey lore. And Canadian hockey fans know that a “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” is an expression for the perfect or complete game – one that includes a goal, an assist, and a fight. Of course, the pugilistic third part of the equation may irk or mystify some, but it nonetheless captures what some deem to be an ideal game, the perfect night, or the complete package.
As one who likes to use hockey analogies for parts of everyday life, I think that the expression a Gordie Howe Hat Trick – the complete package – can be tweaked to refer to the complete package when it comes to what historians do. And that expression would be a “Thucydides Hat Trick”. Here is a recent opinion piece I had published in the Hamilton Spectator:
https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2022/08/31/charter-protections-failed-during-pandemic.html
A sobering but insightful survey of the last few generations of American white evangelicals and their view of males and leadership. Making such “leadership” necessary was the perceived threats facing the church and the nation, and only a John Wayne type of “leadership”, with guns blazing, was seen to be able to set things right. The litany of powerful male leaders that embraced a muscular Christianity – with the troubling linkage with patriarchal abuse – is cause for pause and self-analysis. That said, one is left wondering how evangelicals fared compared to other religious groups – were they the only ones who struggled with what a male (or female) was meant to be? As an aside, this is the kind of book that helps to make sense of the present. For instance, some of the troubling aspects of what we see today among American evangelicals are not anomalies. Rather, such actions have generations of precedent and are part of the DNA of the movement. Memorable Quote: “But evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad. By the time Trump arrived proclaiming himself their savior, conservative white evangelicals had already traded a faith that privileges humility and elevates ‘the least of these’ for one that derides gentleness as the province of wusses. Rather than turning the other cheek, they’d resolved to defend their faith and their nation, secure in the knowledge that the ends justify the means. Having replaced the Jesus of the Gospels with a vengeful warrior Christ, it’s no wonder many came to think of Trump in the same way. In 2016, many observers were stunned at evangelicals’ apparent betrayal of their own values. In reality, evangelicals did not cast their vote despite their beliefs, but because of them.” (3) I have recently discovered that the way to get some reading done is to live at the cottage – and make sure that there is no internet available. The lack of access to Netflix and other electronic distractions meant that all my down time was spent reading and I was able to knock off some reading that I had wanted to do for a while, as well as read a few works that were just sitting on the shelf whispering my name…
In 1956/57, Dr. Martin Niemueller – the famous German pastor imprisoned by the Nazis – went on a speaking tour in Canada in partnership with the Canadian Council of Churches. Niemueller lamented how the troubles of the day such as the rise of communism, racial tensions, and social injustices threatened the West.
It was as if the barbarians were at the gate and a new Dark Age was nigh. Christendom was seen to be on its way out, and the “stewardship of the white races [was] coming rapidly to an end.” In light of the crisis facing the church in the West Niemueller pointed to Jesus’ parable in Luke 16 often coined the “Unjust Steward.” It was an application of the text that was fascinating, provocative, and controversial then – and perhaps even now. I have been working through my pile of stacked books, trying to beat it down so that it does not tip over (and so that I can pile more books on). Here are my summer reads so far, in no particular order (although the last one is pretty depressing).
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