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February 13, 2012

Home > 2001 > June (Web-only)Christianity Today, June (Web-only), 2001
History Bully
Christian scholars speak not-so-softly over a big sticking point: Theodore Roosevelt's faith

The April 2 issue of Christianity Today included an article by Preston Jones entitled "How To Serve Time: There is a Christian way to study the past without weakening the truth." In the article, Jones writes that "Christian writers of history have sometimes failed to distinguish between civil religion and casual Christianity, on the one hand, and biblical Christianity on the other." And he cites as a case in point the 1997 book by George Grant, Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Theodore Roosevelt. Grant asserts that Roosevelt "stood foursquare on the legacy of biblical orthodoxy." Not so, says Jones: "Teddy Roosevelt had little use for 'biblical orthodoxy,' and to spin him as an orthodox Christian is to get him wrong."

On his Web site, Grant has responded to Jones's article. This response is worth noting for two reasons: first, for the way in which Grant frames his disagreement with Jones, and second, for the specifics of the debate over Roosevelt.

Interestingly, in framing their disagreement, Grant treats Jones as a representative of what he calls the "Evangelically-Correct approach to history." In this reading, Jones represents a party line enforced by the editors of Christianity Today. Indeed, much of Grant's labored sarcasm is directed at CT. As an editor at large for CT, I must admit that I find Grant's picture of the magazine unrecognizable. For example, according to Grant, "in Evangelically-Correct history individuals who hold to a Reformed Worldview can always be compared unfavorably with those who hold to an Arminian Worldview." Certainly this will come as news to many faithful readers of the magazine. And it seems particularly odd that Grant should raise such a charge in connection with an article in the ...

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