Historian Mark Noll of Notre Dame (here in the states, not in France) has written a book about his faith and the expression of it within the academy. Entitled, From Every Tribe and Nation, this personal memoir (something Noll himself admits being uncomfortable with) deals with his wrestling with faith in Jesus within the academy. Since I am a historian, I was intrigued when I first read the review of the book.
One of my favorite theologians, John Piper has written a masterful commentary and review of the book. There, Piper describes how Noll deals with “serious, instructive, and unanswered questions about how to think about the history of Christianity in global perspective.” He is keenly aware that he is part of a band of Christian historians who have
made a strategic adjustment that opened the door to their participation in the Western University world. This adjustment was to abandon — at least while working with standard academic conventions — the tradition of providential historiography. The adjustment required Christian historians to consider history writing as part of the sphere of creation rather than the sphere of grace, as a manifestation of general rather than special revelation. Put differently, Christian historians have often taken their place in the modern Academy by treating history not as theology but as empirical science. This choice meant that they have constructed their historical accounts primarily from facts ascertained from documentary or material evidence and explained in terms of natural human relationships. For these purposes, believing historians have not presumed to show directly how overarching theological realities are played out in details of historical development. (100–101)
This challenge is one I feel often. For myself, the focus on the evidence of faith is central to my own experience as a Christian and a historian. For some of my Christian friends, however, they don’t like my focus here. To them, they feel more deeply the presence of God without the need for an expression of facts.
Later, Piper explains how Noll feels about this tension:
It can be difficult for missiologists, as well as for other Christian historians, to show how the worlds of faith and historical science can be brought together with integrity. Yet because of what they study — situations where unseen spiritual dynamics and visible cultural consequences exists so inextricably entwined — missiologists are in a favored position. (102)
Thus, even though “Western thinking about historical knowledge remains in a confused and troubled condition” (103), the explosion of the study of world Christianity and the emergence of rigorous missiological scholars, gives Noll “great hope that they may also show the way in historical method” (108).
Noll pays tribute to the late Ogbu Kalu for giving expression to the urgency of this need.
It is now necessary to observe rigorous historical methods as developed over centuries in the West . . . and at the same time acknowledge the manifest workings of God in time and space. While this challenge is daunting, trying to meet it has become more imperative than ever. (194)