The observation has been made that “history students seem to retain a religious affiliation more often than those in other disciplines” (Dexter Perkins and John Snell, The Education of Historians in the United States, p. 44). Whatever the reasons for this, the student of history, by retaining such affiliation in a secularistic society, runs the risk of having his objectivity as a scholar questioned. Already there has been much discussion of the problem of religious commitment and historical writing. It is a problem which bears further examination, however, not only because it relates to a significant number of historians, but because the entire Western historiographical tradition is entering a crucial phase. Thus the question may be asked, What is the role of the Christian historian in this new phase? To answer this we must know something about the nature of the new phase.

A historical epoch is ending, an epoch which has been called “The Age of Vasco da Gama”—not because Vasco da Gama himself possessed such extraordinary significance, but because he symbolizes the most important feature of the age. Although there is no denying the variety and the splendor of “non-Western” civilizations in the past half-millennium, it is still true that this period has been one in which the Western world, having seized the initiative in making contacts beyond the limits of its own center, has expanded its horizons to encompass the entire world—at the height of its power subordinating much of that world. Through that contact and subordination the West has profoundly influenced all societies and cultures, but the “end of empire” is introducing a new phase of contact.

The Western world has experienced an internal crisis, while the peoples of the non-Western world have been assimilating forces created in the West into their own cultural traditions. I am not speaking here of a “decline of the West” in terms of a historical cycle or trying to stir up images of crumbling ruins. The point is that over the past five hundred years the West has occupied a peculiar place in world history. The concerns of Western historiography, as varied as they are, have been dependent to a great extent on this peculiar relation between West and non-West. With this relation now changing, a major task facing the Western historian is the renewal of the attempt to view world history in its totality; but before this is possible there must be increased study and broader comprehension of the history and cultures of non-Western societies.

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The recognition of this need is reflected by the increased interest in the study of Asia, the Near East, and Africa. No one will pretend, however, that this study has been either intensive or extensive enough as yet. These are still “new” fields of historiography, and our “experts” are only pioneers; the patterns of procedure and interpretation are still fluid.

The role of the committed Christian in this examination is obscured by the increasing tendency to use the term “Post-Christian Era” as an appropriate historical description, even in reference to the Western world alone. Implicit in this usage is the idea that to write history from a “Christian point of view,” a practice that has long been suspect, is now anachronistic. If such is the case, then the Christian historian has no part in the “new” historiography; a man may be both a Christian and a historian, but he has to keep these roles separate. Thus it becomes necessary for our purpose to examine the term “Post-Christian Era.”

An argument sometimes employed to support this usage is an appeal to numbers. Not only in the world as a whole but even in the “Christian countries” of the West Christians are a minority (though “Christian” be only loosely defined as a practicing member of a church professing a tie with primitive Christianity). But when have Christians ever been a majority in the world? And has there not been at least a substantial minority of non-Christians in every epoch of Western history?

More striking is the argument that the Christian ethos of Western civilization is breaking down, that we are living in a world increasingly dominated by values which are a-Christian, if not anti-Christian. While the argument from numbers is superficial, this one states the real problem.

It is common to speak of Western civilization as the product of a fusion of the classical, Judeo-Christian, and Teutonic traditions. Indeed it would be idle to deny that the prevailing ethical views in the West were molded by Christianity. Further, Christianity can be cited as an instrumental force in the development of most other aspects of our culture and civilization. In the crisis of confidence that has been so apparent in the twentieth century, it is obvious, first, that the traditional morality and ethos of Western civilization are being transformed and, second, that a secularism indifferent and even alien to Christianity is flourishing. If these things are true, is it not the logical conclusion that we live in the “Post-Christian Era”?

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A Man-Centered World

It is the awareness of this change that is occurring that has produced the term under discussion. It is the change itself that makes the term possible, for it is based on the man-centered orientation of the modern world. Viewed from this vantage point, Christianity is essentially an ethic, a code of behavior for men. Put in another way, Christianity is identified with the men who profess themselves Christians, and in these terms is obviously Western. Western civilization has been a Christian civilization to the extent that the Christian ethic was one of its roots and that the majority of Christians have been Westerners.

But in the first place, Christianity is not simply an ethic; and in the second place, while Western civilization has been a product of Christianity, Christianity is not coterminous with Western civilization—though there are many who believe it to be. Jesus Christ was not the founder of Western civilization, but the redeemer of mankind. It has been the great failing of Western Christians that they have sought to imprison God’s redemptive power within a human cultural framework. In its essence, Christianity is not bound to any one culture; it is a historic act of God.

When we speak of a “Post-Christian Era” what we are saying is that Western man has failed to carry the Gospel into the world as he was commanded, and that in hiding the light under a bushel he has lost sight of it himself. It is a phrase that is concerned with man, and in this sense it is undoubtedly true. The West has failed both in preaching the Word of God to all peoples, and in practicing the Word in life.

In truth there can be no “Post-Christian Era,” for God sent his only begotten Son into the world to be the one, true, holy, and living sacrifice for all men. The redemption of mankind by Christ is the central fact of history, not because it stands in a cause-and-effect relation with all other events, but because it happened once, for all time and for all men.

If the relation between Christianity and Western civilization is understood in this way, then it follows that the Christian historian is equipped particularly well to exercise a role in the “new” historiography.

For the Christian the central fact of history is the life of Jesus Christ, and especially his crucifixion and resurrection, by which man is provided with some awareness of the manner in which ultimately human history will be judged. For the Christian this central fact is framed by the knowledge that God created the world and man in his own image and that there will come a time when all men will be judged in the light of the promise offered to mankind by Christ Jesus. The Christian is provided with a view of the nature of man explicit in the doctrine of the Fall and with the conviction that God has a purpose in history, but he is not bound by theories of historical development.

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There have been numerous attempts to formulate a “Christian philosophy of history,” but these attempts have been hardly more convincing than secular philosophies of history. (By “philosophy of history” is meant an attempt to define a systematic theory of historical development applicable to all times and places.) One of the strengths of Christianity is that, while acknowledging that God does have an ultimate plan, it admits the impossibilities of man’s full comprehension of that plan. At most the Christian has a “view of history.” And a most important result of this view is that it frees the historian to use a wide variety of interpretative devices to understand a given historical problem.

The Christian’S Intellectual Freedom

God has a purpose in history which the Christian identifies as the redemption of man from the consequences of the Fall. The total process by which this purpose is fulfilled composes the ultimate plan of God, but the plan is beyond our comprehension. Within the limits of God’s design, however, man is confronted by the need to formulate historical interpretations which are valid in terms of human understanding. To bind oneself to a philosophy of history that does not allow for the variety of human natures and of human cultures is to impede the use of man’s reason and thus to prevent the possibility of full human comprehension. The Christian is free to use the intellectual capacity of man to its fullest potential and in full freedom—a freedom which does imply, however, an overwhelming responsibility.

It is this freedom which gives the committed Christian a particular advantage in approaching the historiographical problem created by the ending of the “Age of Vasco da Gama.” Since he is not unalterably committed to a set interpretation of history—and note that our patterns of interpretation are themselves the products of a particular tradition—the Christian historian is free to approach the history of non-Western cultures and to examine them as entities; to view India, for example, in terms of Indian culture rather than in terms of Western “philosophical” categories.

This is not to say that the role of the Christian historian is an easy one. He too has been influenced by his environment; but by the nature of his faith he possesses a greater freedom to understand than do his fellows, a freedom limited only by the knowledge that God alone is infinite.

William J. McGill, Jr., assistant professor of history at Alma College, Alma, Michigan, has the B.A. from Trinity College, M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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