In 1905 Philosopher George Santayana wrote the now famous phrase, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” For some the study of history may be a dry and boring subject, especially in an age enamored of progress always pining after the latest and greatest, but history is the great book of the past that can teach us more than we can learn from the present.
History is not simply isolated facts, dates and events to be remembered as if it were a multiple choice test; it is a story, or very many stories, and for Christians it is ultimately His-story. History’s stories and the lessons we learn from them, have a profound impact on both present and future, or at least they should. We all know, or should, that the story tellers in a society have a significant influence on the manners and mores, the attitudes and beliefs of its people. This includes, importantly, the stories of history. History must be interpreted because it is not just brute facts. Partisan, philosophical, and religious divisions often afflict the meaning we assign to history.
Truth is always our highest calling, no less for the historian, yet truth is often in the eye of the beholder. And as we know, higher education and the scholarly world in general is often hostile to Christianity, and the discipline of history is no different. History can easily be distorted and used as yet another weapon to demean or diminish the Christian witness in history.
That is why is it so important that Christians learn to appreciate history, study and learn from it, and like Thomas S. Kidd, tell it. When we find Bible-believing Christians who are historians, like Dr. Kidd, and who are very good it at, we need to know about them. Dr. Kidd is a professor of history at Baylor University and Associate Director of Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He has written numerous books, including his latest, George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father. You can explore his other work in the history of religion in America at his Amazon page.
One of goals of Engage the Culture is to be a resource for Christians who aspire to take their Christian worldview into our fallen world, and to winsomely and with excellence engage it. We need writers who will do that, and those who tell stories with their “pen” are especially important, be that fiction, or as Dr. Kidd is doing, in the discipline of history. Dr. Kidd is one of those resources for aspiring writers because he likes to share his experiences of what it takes to be a published writer with those who might aspire to do the same.
He has a newsletter that he sends out periodically where he will share some from his personal life, like his recent semester in Scotland (I’m jealous), his professional life, and also what he does to be a consistently published writer, and one known throughout the scholarly world for his excellence. You can sign up for it at the Thomas S. Kidd Newsletter.
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