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It isn't that Roosevelt should be painted mainly in a bad light. He was an extraordinary and, in many ways, wonderful man; he was larger than life and is one of the most significant personalities in American history. But, like everyone, Roosevelt was a sinner, and his actions helped to set off a series of events that, for good and bad, affect us still.

Christian writers who spin history in simplistic terms to boost their favored political, cultural, or theological causes are doing nothing better than politically motivated writers who do the same. The antidote to secularist historical revisionism isn't Christian revisionism but simply trying to get the past right, insofar as that is possible. Scholarly incompetence with a Christian face on it is still incompetence, and one who fabricates myths in the name of saving Christian kids from secularism isn't doing anyone a service.

The Bible clearly has a lot to say in praise of such qualities, even though the present sound-bite culture can hardly stand them. Nowadays, it seems that it is enough to say that Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and a slaveholder, was a bald-faced hypocrite, period, and that Christopher Columbus was a wanton purveyor of destruction and genocide—end of story. An inattentive population can hardly stand conclusions more complex, and more accurate, than these. (The same was true a century ago, when Jefferson and Columbus were sometimes described in almost godlike terms.) But time and again, the Scriptures admonish believers to be wise in their approach both to spiritual and worldly matters, cautious in judgment, prudent in how they conduct relationships, and discerning.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews says that the "Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (KJV). I think this description also can stand as an ideal to be pursued by every Christian who reads, writes, teaches, and thinks about history. "Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves," the Scriptures say. "Be quick to hear and slow to speak." "With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged."

In the preface to his fine 1995 biography of Abraham Lincoln, David Herbert Donald writes that he asked "at every stage of [Lincoln's] career what he knew when he had to take critical actions, how he evaluated the evidence before him, and why he reached his decisions. [This book] is then a biography written from Lincoln's point of view, using the information and ideas that were available to him."

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April 2 2001, Vol. 45, No. 5