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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819229717 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Church Publishing Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/03/2003 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 244 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
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The Church in History
By John Booty
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2003 John E. BootyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-2971-7
CHAPTER 1
The Importance of Church History for Ourselves and for the Community
Why Study History?
We study history because we must if we are to be fully human.
How can such a sweeping claim be understood? We begin by confronting the fact that we are social beings. Aristotle, in the fourth century before Christ, wrote of the origins of the political community, the state. It all began with the necessary union of male and female for the perpetuation of humanity. There followed the association of people in families, in villages, in cities, and in nations. Thus the history of humanity began.
That which is true of our origins is emphatically true of our present condition. John Donne, writing in the seventeenth century as Dean of St. Paul s Cathedral, London, affirmed:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a man of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore do not send to me to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
This involvement in mankind is not limited to space. It embraces time as well. Thus if Donne were living now he might, possibly, write:
"No man is a moment or a lifetime, entire of itself; everyone is a part of the whole, of time past, time present, and time yet to come. What Galileo saw and understood as he looked through his telescope—Alaric the Goth's sack of Rome, Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of a President—all impinge on my life: Anyone's death, now, in time past, in time to come, diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore do not send to me to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Galileo's discoveries concerning the nature of the universe involved the death of a worldview that had dominated human perceptions for centuries. Because he seemed to be turning the truth upside down, his discoveries aroused the ire of the church hierarchy. Alaric's sack of Rome is a symbol of the end of the Roman peace and of Roman domination of the Mediterranean world. But the event is also symbolic of the release of new possibilities, prospects that led to the development of Western Europe with its achievements and failures. Lee Harvey Oswald's fatal shooting of President Kennedy involved the death of hope for many people and a reassessment of ourselves and our corporate life in the latter half of the twentieth century. Such events in time past impinge on us now. We are involved in mankind through the ages. If we are to know who we are we must self-consciously relate ourselves to the past.
We are here engaged in understanding time and our relationship to time. We are probing the mystery of time. In such probing we may expect to discover something about our human nature which we might otherwise ignore. Indeed, because consideration of things past involves work and pain as well as entertainment and fulfillment, we are inclined to deny the significance of the past. That we must not, cannot do so was the conviction of Charles Henry Brent, modern missionary, bishop, and statesman of the Episcopal Church. He once referred to a Scottish philosopher, whom he did not name, who asserted that the chief characteristic of time was "its togetherness." Past, present, and future are interrelated. It is true of the individual whose personal history is involved in what we will and do at present. It is also true of society, whose corporate history through centuries of human experience is involved in our present social policies and in their application.
Furthermore, if we ignore history we deteriorate, becoming less than fully human. If we refuse to study the past, we abdicate from the power and authority, which we rightly possess, over the historical forces that impinge upon us, and we are in grave danger of being led like dumb oxen into the future. There are strong tendencies within us, as individuals and as groups, to conform to the dominant intellectual, moral, and cultural trends of the present age, without thought, without criticism, and without control.
As humans we are gifted with that which Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher, has called the historical sense. This is the "sense" by which we perceive the past, and traveling away from ourselves into that past we gain necessary perspective on the present.
If we exercise this sense, we will gain the leverage needed to break away from the forces of this age which seek to control us, and we will regain our lost humanity. We will also be better prepared to move creatively into the future.
Some people might protest that the study of history often involves an irresponsible flight from present responsibilities. The study of history has also been used to buttress unwarranted, destructive authority in government, religion, art, and science. There is no denying the fact that historical studies can and will be used and abused in the service of base and dehumanizing motives. Historical study needs to be examined critically in order to discern the prejudices and presuppositions of its practitioners. When historical investigation is pursued with the utmost seriousness, the historical sense with which we are endowed works against all abuse and is a means by which we are protected against tyrannical power. Historical study as a rigorous, critical discipline exercised on behalf of humanity, its dignity and freedom, is essential to our well-being and indeed to our survival. This is a fact attested to by the psychiatrist who assists patients to recover their pasts in order that they may find themselves. It is a fact understood by the wise world leader who, for the sake of sanity and survival, will not let anyone forget the horrors of the Nazi death camps, the tragic nightmare of Hiroshima, and the napalm deaths in Vietnam.
Why Study Church History?
We study church history because we are human beings and possess an historical sense. We are involved in mankind. The church as a part of society shares history with those who stand apart from the church. But there is more to the answer than this.
Christianity by its very nature is concerned for history. Unlike others of the world religions, its roots are in historical events that are of the greatest significance. It is composed of the followers of Jesus Christ who we affirm was
born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
To be a Christian is to remember the historical Jesus and that which God did through him here on earth, among particular women and children and men. This remembering is not antiquarian in nature, nor is it meant to bolster present church authority. It is not static or passive. The remembering involves experiencing the presence of Christ now by the power of the Holy Spirit. As Scripture is read and the Word of God preached, as the Creed is said and the faithful join in Holy Communion, Christians participate in Christ. This is what is meant by the Eternal Present and it has roots in the Hebrew mode of remembering.
In the Book of Deuteronomy (26:5-8) a liturgy is given for the presentation of the first fruits at the central sanctuary of Israel. Here God's mercies are recounted, and as they are, that which was past is present, the "he" becomes "us":
And you shall make response before the Lord your God, "A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers ... and the Lord brought us out of Egypt ...
In a similar manner, as Christians remembered their Lord he was in the midst of them. The barrier of time was overcome in the act of thanksgiving, which is remembering.
To be a Christian is to remember events on both sides of the central events of God in Christ on earth. God worked through his chosen people, Israel. God works through his chosen people, the New Israel, the Christian community. We remember thus because faith affirms that God the Creator has been God the Redeemer of his marred and fallen creation from the beginning of time. The temporal reality—under Pontius Pilate—is Eternal Fact. Thus twentieth-century Christians understand that they are involved in the Old Israel: it is their history. Anti-Semitism is rejected. Twentieth-century Christians are also involved in the centuries of triumph and tragedy of the church: it is their history. Remembering the course of events from the beginning until now, with the center of history in the historic Jesus illuminating that which went before and that which followed after, Christians derive wisdom and power and inspiration to carry on. They are enabled to carry on that which makes effective the mission of Christ and to break loose from the past as it inhibits that mission of salvation for all peoples.
Remembering, in the dynamic manner, which we have been considering, constitutes the primary vocation of the church. Remembering is the chief activity of Christians, for remembering involves action guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Remembering is a mode of worship, which impels the worshiper to represent Christ in the world as the agent of justice and love.
Even this is not all that must be said. The study of church history is important not only for the reasons given above, but also because such study arouses a sense of the distance and the difference between past and present. This understanding of distance and difference has been of very great importance since, as some scholars believe, it was first introduced by humanists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in western Europe. It was among the roots of the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Martin Luther and others perceived how different the church they knew in the sixteenth century was from the church of the Apostles and their followers in the first and second centuries. Observing the difference, they sought to reform their decadent and corrupt church according to the example of the earliest church. This understanding of distance and difference can also be found at the roots of the nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholic objection to the Reformation. Hurrell Froude, the friend of John Henry Newman, was most vehement in his denunciation of the reformers, sensing the distance between them and the Middle Ages, which he so much admired. A sense of distance and difference from the past, whether expressed through admiration or disgust, is vital for the most fruitful and honest study of history.
Some students of history resist awareness of distance and difference. They demand that everything be put in their own terms so that they may immediately understand and dominate the past. They prefer those who simply recite facts or those who fictionalize history, dressing it up with modern language and attitudes. The differences between past and present are glossed over or obliterated. Even those who understand the importance of remembering may be inclined to this error. To remember Jesus is not to make him one of us. A distance remains; there is a difference between him and us. Likewise, church history is not composed of an endless series of stories which can be used to embellish otherwise dull sermons, pointing out how Augustine or Calvin or Niebuhr thought as we do about this or that. A part of the community of saints, Augustine of Hippo remains a fifth-century bishop of a North African church. There is a great distance and difference, in time, space, and basic attitudes, between Augustine and ourselves. To be a student of history in the best sense is to be conscious of historical distances and differences.
It is important, for instance, to realize that the way a person in ancient Rome perceived reality differs greatly from our own perceptions. We take for granted many things which would be incomprehensible to someone in the ancient world. Sigmund Freud's recovery of the unconscious, Charles Darwin's exposition of the evolution of species by means of natural selection, and the discovery of the place of planet earth not at the center of the universe but as a tiny speck rotating around a star which is one among countless numbers of stars—these commonplaces of the modern perception of reality were unknown in sixteenth-century England and in first-century Rome.
Consider for a moment the fact that early Christians viewed the world and humanity at the center of the universe surrounded by spheres at the outer limit of which there was located heaven, where God and the saints dwelt. This is not how we understand the universe, nor can it be, although we cannot say that the way we view it is final in the sense that it will never be modified. Nevertheless, we act on the basis of our understanding of earth as a planet of the sun, the sun as one among millions, the universe limitless.
This difference of perception has, as might be expected, ramifications. For one thing, under the old view God inhabited a place—up there! Now there are serious discussions concerning where God is, if he is anywhere. The modern understanding of God's location is inclined to be abstract and to seek for God, for instance, in the depth of being. Then, too, under the old view the way of salvation was likened to an ascent up a ladder. It has been pictured in terms of a ladder extending up from earth through the rotating spheres to God's heaven. Along the way evil spirits retard while angels assist the pilgrim up the ladder of perfection. The Christian life was thus a pilgrimage, involving the gradual perfection of the saints through prayers and good deeds. Our perception of reality influences our understanding of the Christian life. It is vitally important that we be aware of differing perceptions, realizing the distance which separates us from the past. Being thus sensitive to the differences, we shall be better able to study, to criticize, to evaluate, and to learn. We shall also be better equipped to remember that which ought to be remembered and to forget that which ought to be forgotten.
For this reason—that the reader may have some sense of historical distance—there will be words and ideas in the following chapters which seem strange and are at first difficult to understand. You may ask why there are so many quotations, why some of them are so long, and why they aren't put into the author's words instead. The answer is that I want the reader to be constantly reminded of the distance and thus be enabled time and again to encounter the past, not as we would have it but as it was. You are asked, therefore, to work through this book, not skipping the quotations because they are difficult, letting them and the interpretations of them sink in until you feel the distance between then and now. Once the distance is sensed, the encounter with the past begins and you will find yourself passing beyond the differences to experience that lively remembering which enriches humanity and faith.
The effort required in reading church history brings rewards as dialogues occur between the reader and the past. Princess Elizabeth of Hungary, Saint Elizabeth, is remembered for the sacrificial care she provided for the sick in the thirteenth century. Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England in the sixteenth century, has been immortalized as "the man for all seasons" and is remembered for his struggle to remain true to his conscience as his patriotism was being tested. Both saints were in the world and both possessed ample supplies of grace and good humor, Elizabeth entertaining her court, Thomas entertaining his friends in his lively household. Both wore hair shirts, shirts made of haircloth and worn by ascetics and penitents. The shirt, worn next to the skin, irritated the flesh and was sometimes painful. Why did they wear such a thing? Were they masochists? Consider the fact seriously and you enter into another world, one far different from that which is familiar to most twentieth-century Americans. It is a world where the scourging of the body is not evidence of mental distress or illness but of health, sanity, and holiness. For unlike the majority of persons who worship before mirrors and live for the sake of the belly and of vanity, Elizabeth of Hungary and Thomas More sought to subdue the body that they might live for God and for those for whom the Lord Christ died on the cross. The hair shirt was an ally, beneficent and good. It did not put an end to their good humors. Instead, it supported them.
Here is something to consider, to wrestle with: persons become more real to us as we realize their otherness. Indeed we might find ourselves learning from them how to love, how to live in obedience to the Lord.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Church in History by John Booty. Copyright © 2003 John E. Booty. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
1. The Importance of Church History for Ourselves and for the Community, 1,2. The Christian Community: The Body of Christ, an Evolving Institution, 13,
3. Renewal and Reform: "Behold I make all things new", 53,
4. Church and Culture: Christ and Caesar in Tension, 95,
5. The Mission of the Community: 'To Every Kindred and Tongue", 133,
6. The Church in History: Concluding Reflections, 175,
Notes, 183,
A Table of Significant Dates, 191,
Suggestions for Further Reading, 197,
Map Section follows page 201, 202,
Index, 209,