Don’t Underestimate the Role of History in Evangelism

Christians are called to be different from the surrounding culture. Philippians 2:15 says we should “shine as lights in the world.” Romans 12:2 calls us to “not be conformed to this world.” To use Augustine’s imagery from The City of God, the heavenly city and the earthly city are in a state of antithesis. We often think of this contrast in terms of our conduct and morality—but what does it mean for how we view history? Should Christians have a unique posture toward historical study and awareness?

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker explores these questions in her thrilling book Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age. For Irving-Stonebraker, associate professor of history and Western Civilization at Australian Catholic University, the late modern Western world has entered an “ahistoric age,” which she argues began around 2010, due in part to social media’s influence.

Part of the problem is an increasing ignorance of history in society (and the book chronicles alarming ways in which this has gotten worse even in the past decade). But the problem is deeper. Ahistoricism also involves the way culture wars and social media lead us to more simplistic historical judgments in which the people and ideas of the past are either weaponized or canceled. Insofar as we engage history at all, we tend to do so with a “totalizing and puritanical mentality” that manipulates historical facts to serve a contemporary agenda (25). This is profoundly related to our increasing difficulty in living peaceably with each other today.

Meaning Through History

Ahistoricism fuels much of the loneliness and the pervasive meaninglessness and disintegration in modern society. Since a sense of historical situatedness is integral to our humanity, the uniquely ahistorical posture of Western modernity has serious implications for human flourishing. It cuts us off from normal human experience.

Priests of History helps us understand the dire consequences of this historical posture—both for the church and for society at large. For Christians, in particular, failure to know the past profoundly hinders our worship, our mission, even our understanding of the gospel. Yet the book points to hopeful ways that reengaging with the past can provide opportunities for renewal and evangelism.

Irving-Stonebraker argues that Christians in an ahistorical age are called to be “priests” of history—a powerful image drawn from Robert Boyle’s vision of scientists as “priests of nature” (90). To be a priest of history is to steward and mediate what around us has been forgotten or neglected. As she puts it, “Christians are called to tend and keep time, including the past. . . . We are to be a witness to the past, cultivate it, and keep uncovering the stories and ideas that comprise the history of the world” (96). Irving-Stonebraker offers a framework for how to engage history—and persuades her readers that doing so is both important and exciting.

Spiritual Formation Through History

Priests of History contains beautiful examples of this kind of historical engagement that are intellectually illuminating but also spiritually edifying. For example, discussions about regular times of prayer and other spiritual rhythms in the life of the church throughout history could reshape every young person who spends time on social media. Similarly, accounts of the devoted community Little Gidding and the life of Joseph Hall provide concrete examples of spiritual formation in the people’s daily existence.

The study of history is food for the hungry soul. Recovering sacredness and beauty could mitigate the modern trend toward “disenchantment,” especially as we consider the emphasis our forebears—many of whom had fewer resources—placed on aesthetics in worship spaces. Furthermore, Irving-Stonebraker’s testimony about discovering God while simply observing the Lord’s Supper illustrates how embodied worship practices can inform belief. How many others in our culture need not a philosophical proof but a beautiful liturgical expression of sacredness in worship?

The study of history is food for the hungry soul.

This raises a point that recurs throughout the book: studying history may have an important role in the re-Christianization of the West and in reducing the speed of secularization. This, of course, is dramatized in Irving-Stonebraker’s conversion story, which opens and closes the book.

Engaging history helped her toward Christianity. She isn’t alone. Her story parallels that of C. S. Lewis, for whom historical influences like John Milton, George MacDonald, and George Herbert were catalytic in opening his mind to theism, and specifically Christianity. I suspect countless others may have a similar experience in our day. I pray they do.

Apologetics Through History

Why is history intertwined with evangelism in our day? Irving-Stonebraker writes of her thinking prior to her conversion, “My stereotyped assumptions about Christians relied on fundamentalist caricatures: anti-intellectual and self-righteous” (xix). A careful study of history broke those prejudices down. For example, she now celebrates the role of Christians (such as Frederick Douglass) in slavery’s abolition and exposes the falsehood that Christianity and science have historically been opposed to one another.

The past serves spiritual renewal in less direct ways as well. The very atmosphere of history is a tonic against our modern limitations and blind spots. I suspect many others, like Irving-Stonebraker and Lewis, will find history and religion are intertwined—so much so that it’s difficult to truly engage the past without finding secular assumptions challenged at the foundation. This helps us communicate the joy of the gospel to our neighbors.

The very atmosphere of history is a tonic against our modern limitations and blind spots.

Priests of History has a critical message at just the right time. As followers of Jesus, we’re part of a grand, purposeful story. We’re therefore tasked with keep alive memory of the past, bringing it to bear on the challenges of the present. As we move further into the turbulent waters of late modernity, may those of us who claim the name of Christ embrace this kind of priestly role of intercession—with respect to history and more. This task is central to our calling as the church and necessary for the well-being of our culture.

What Irving-Stonebraker commends in this book will help Christians be faithful in a strange new time and will intrigue everyone who longs to be part of a grand story.