My Brief History of History

I love church history, and history in general, not always popular areas for many people. One recalls dull, chalk-smelling classrooms, and monotone teachers, droning on about dates and Dukes.

So, you may be thinking, why do I like history? Because there is a lot to be learned, but more than this, investigating it can give you some sense of understanding for your self, regarding things you may know little about, but may still have a few remembered fragments tucked into a crevice of your brain, previously, that were rather fuzzy and largely, very boring tales. However, there is a feeling of excitement that one experiences as you come to comprehend a smidgen of the triumphs and trials of those who have gone before. Gradually, light begins to dawn, the drawbridge opens, so to speak, the imagination gets to work, and things start to come to life (again).

I find it exciting to turn over a few rocks of the latter days, and to see what is there: finding out who really did what, how they coped with their problems, and all of the weird and interesting things that happened or were said. Not that we can truly know with perfect knowledge - there is no time machine to really know for certain. But there are good books to read, books that are better for finding out than some others. And some documentaries are much better than others, measured in dates, and from direct sources, not merely in upper Fahrenheit’s of ideology. Ahem!

There are many cases in which historical records were tweaked to over blow the successes of the powerful and the moneyed, but an army of sterilized, politically correct practictioners is now replacing this with a new kind of bias. I think we should be especially careful to use kid gloves when we read their impressions of what people believed, particularly Christians of the past (and present), who seem to be getting a very raw deal, as we are so frequently portrayed as the (new) source of the problems in this world. One only has to pick up a book or article about the faith, to see how far they really are from understanding what and who we Christians really are. Unless you are actually a Christian, you are just comparing one group with another, and being guided by some theory from psychology or sociology, often imbued unconsciously at many higher learning centers with every whiff of oxygen.

It is very discouraging to hear, oh, so often, “well, we know that he or she never really said/did/visited this place” or some such thing. Therefore, it can be very rewarding to go back in time and find out the facts as best you can. In fact, serendipity is a frequent companion on this kind of quest, bringing wondrous gems to the surface, and gleanings of shocking and surprising events.

I love the fact that the Gospels, and the whole bible for that matter, displays the faults and failing of so many whom we would call hero’s of the faith. For instance, we see the quivering, traitorous, and cowardly desertion of Christ by his closest disciples. How much would be tempted to clean things up if we were penning the reports!? Yet, afterwards, we see the absolute revolution in their lives, charged and changed by the Holy Spirit, and epitomized most markedly by Saul, who later become Paul. I pray for more “off horse knocking” even today! We need a few more G. K. Chestertons’ and C. S. Lewis’ for our own day as well.

One thing I discovered about Anselm of Canterbury, a great 12th Century theologian, that is a wonderful tid-bit. His credo was: “credo ut intelligam“ - “I believe that I might understand”, yet, unlikely and unexpected as it might be, most of his philosophical musings about the existence of God were actually written as prayers to God. I find it very refreshing to find this kind of devotion, with which many ancients set about their work, and especially, in contrast to the cold, steely-eyed, skepticism and detachment that bids more recent scholars, bow before the empirical throne. We are probably wise to be skeptical of their skepticism.

A few quotes from actual history exams answers:

“Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.”

“Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.”

“Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.”

“In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.”
“Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.”
“Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door.”

“World War II began turning around when the Allies landed near Italy's toe and gradually advanced up her leg.”

“Hitler shot himself in the bonker.”

“History is nothing more than the behind of the present.”

More some hysterically funny, and slightly disturbing, answers to history tests from some of the finest college can be found at the following link – historians and parents might want to get a box of tissues at hand to stem their weeping!

http://www.dribbleglass.com/Jokes/history.htm

Cheers!

Peter