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The recent publication of History and the Christian Historian, edited by Ronald A. Wells, and Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, edited by James D. Bratt, provides Christian scholars of all sorts with an ideal opportunity for an expression of gratitude to the history department at Calvin College.1 Appearing hard on the heels of George Marsden's The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford, 1997)—an outstanding work that has already received due coverage in this publication—these more recent books testify further to Calvin College's unparalleled leadership in the field of Christian historiography. More than anyone else, the historians at Calvin (along with their Dutch Reformed publishers at Eerdmans) have led the way in first-rate thinking about the relationship between faith and history. One does not need to be a Calvinist, or a historian for that matter, to appreciate this thinking and its influence on a wide variety of intellectuals.
I say this as a Lutheran who must confess in all honesty that his own American Lutheran tradition cannot hold a candle to the Calvinists in Grand Rapids—at least when it comes to careful reflection on the role of faith within the academy. A few historians in my tradition have written essays addressing—though not always maintaining—the relationship between faith and the historian's craft.2 One quasi-Lutheran quasi-historian with a Lutheran awareness of human sinfulness has left a lasting historiographical impression with his work on the irony of American history.3 And a greater number of full-fledged Lutherans have written more broadly on faith and learning.4 But the Lutheran tradition has failed to produce anything like the Calvin school's sustained analysis of Christian faith and its importance for the practice of history.
My embarrassment over this failure grew rather acute last year when I at tended a Lilly-funded conference on Christian models of higher education. Held in the Lutheran chapel of a very Lutheran institution of higher learning (Concordia University in River Forest, Ill.), this conference featured representatives from the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed theological traditions. Sitting comfortably amongst fellow Lutherans, I listened profitably as Monika Hellwig (executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities) and Nicholas Wolterstorff (of Yale Divinity School, Calvin College, and the Free University of Amsterdam) articulated well-defined visions of Catholic and Calvinist education. But when Gilbert Meilaender (of Valparaiso University) stepped forward to speak for Lutheran academics, it became quite clear that the followers of Luther have some catching up to do.
To put it briefly, Meilaender argued that the Lutheran theological tradition has virtually nothing unique to contribute to the work of Christian education. In fact, he suggested that "ringing the changes on what are thought to be some standard Lutheran themes is likely to make things worse rather than better in our colleges and universities."5 Tired of half-baked Lutheran attempts to defend the secularity of our colleges with appeals to Christian freedom or to the mysteries of "paradox" (since H. R. Niebuhr's Christ and Culture, an all-too-common tag for Lutheran thought), Meilaender challenged his fellow Lutherans to stop trying to justify their own existence and to start thinking in much more basic ways about forming Christian hearts and minds. He concluded that, before touting the alleged benefits of a uniquely Lutheran education, we have remedial work to do on the fundamentals of Christian pedagogy.
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