Recovering History with Matthew Stewart

About this episode

The episode discusses the interpretation of history within evangelical culture and features historian Matthew Stewart, who examines the church's role in the abolition of slavery.

If you grew up in the evangelical church you may know that there are particular ways of interpreting history in evangelical culture. That is, like any sub-culture, evangelicals tend to tell one another particular stories about the past. In most of those stories, Christians are cast as the good guys. If you want to grow in faith, in knowledge, it is advisable to consider history with a clear lens. While no lens can be perfectly clear, we can seek to be aware of our own biases. When you learn that your own history is not as blameless as you may have been told there are some key possibilities in how to react. You can double-down, denying that your particular community or religion or denomination has anything to admit. You can console yourself by claiming that those who were part of the groups with which you identify were the best of a bad lot. You can also be honest about how some terrible things have been perpetrated in the name of your faith and even by people who were held up as heroes in history. I was always taught that Christian revival was to be celebrated pretty much without question. In fact, in evangelical circles, revival was something to be longed for. It was a kind of…

People in this episode

Guest: Matthew Stewart

Topics covered

• evangelical history
• interpretation of history
• faith and knowledge
• bias in history
• abolition of slavery
• Christian revival

Keywords

• evangelical church
• history
• bias
• revival
• abolition of slavery
• Christianity

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: An Emancipation of the Mind

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