Mark A. Noll

Review: Turning Points

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Cover image of "Turning Points" by Mark A. Noll

Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. Mark A. Noll. Baker Academic (ISBN: 9781540964885) 2022 (the link and publication info is for the 4th edition of the book. My review and the cover image are of the 1997 first edition).

Summary: Twelve decisive moments in Christian history along with twentieth century events that may be turning points.

Mark A. Noll, who has taught history at several colleges, first wrote this concise distillation of Christian history in 1997. In that edition, he identifies twelve decisive “turning points” in the history of Christianity. He also discusses important twentieth century events that may be considered turning points. Noll’s method has the advantage both of focus and offering the ability to incorporate contemporaneous events.

An example of this is his first turning point, the fall of Jerusalem, and how this led to the expansion of the church. In this chapter, he incorporates discussions of the formation of the canon, apostolic succession, and the early creeds of the church.

Subsequent turning points include the Councils of Nicea (on the Trinity) and Chalcedon (on Christology), the rise of monasticism with Benedict, and the culmination of Christendom in Charlemagne. Noll next turns our attention to the East-West schism of 1054, the Diet of Worms, the English Act of Supremacy, and Catholic Reforms including the missionary order of the Jesuits. Latter chapters cover the rise of pietism, focused on the conversion of the Wesleys, the decline of Christendom marked by the French Revolution and the rise of secularity, and the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 and the explosion of Protestant Missions.

There were several things I appreciated in this work. One is that each chapter opens with a hymn from the period being covered and closes with a prayer. Another was Noll’s focus on Catholic history from the Benedictines to the reforms at Trent to the Jesuit movement, the first modern missionary movements. Protestants were latecomers. A third aspect to which I would call attention are the numerous sidebars, for example “Aquinas on Sacraments.” Each chapter includes bibliographies for further reading. Finally, Noll provides an account at once detailed and yet concise of the rise of “the secular age” or modernity at far less length than Charles Taylor!

David Komline and Han-luen Kantzer Komline co-author the newest edition. In addition to Noll’s content, the edition includes new sidebars and updated reading lists. The chapter on the twentieth century now highlights the Lausanne Conference as well as Vatican II. Because of the Lausanne movement’s global impact over fifty years, this is fitting.

The book is ideal for a college-level introductory course in Christian history or an adult education class. Likewise, it makes a great read for anyone who wants to brush up their understanding of Christian history!

C. S. Lewis in America

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C. S. Lewis in America, Mark A. Noll with Karen J. Johnson, Kirk D. Farney, and Amy E. Black. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: An analysis of how C. S. Lewis’s works were received in the United States, considering Catholic, secular, and Protestant/evangelical critics evaluating his work between 1935 and 1947.

Even before the widespread interest in C.S. Lewis due to the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis was being read in both religious and secular circles in the United States from the mid-1930’s and through the 1940’s. In this latest in the Hansen Lectureship Series at the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, American historian Mark A. Noll offers three lectures that analyzed the critical reception and growing interest in Lewis’s works of scholarship, fiction, and theology. Successively, he explores the reception Lewis received among Catholics, in the secular and mainstream media, and among both mainline Protestants and evangelicals, who were late but eventually enthusiastic adopters.

It came as a delightful surprise that Catholics in the U.S. were among his earliest and most appreciative readers. In part, Noll believes that Lewis was a fresh, yet for the most part, orthodox voice that offered a friendly path out of a certain stagnant isolation, reflecting the undercurrent of change developing in the church. Responses ranged from the early and effusive praise of The Pilgrim’s Regress by Fr. Conway, CSP in Catholic World to Philip Donnelly’s criticism of Lewis’s account of “adoptive sonship” in Beyond Personality (later part of Mere Christianity). Other critics had concerns about his doctrine of the church and his ideas about natural law put forth in The Abolition of Man. The high watermark of criticism came from Charles Brady of Canisius College, who read everything Lewis wrote, understood him as well as anyone in this era, and wrote two glowing essays for America that are reprinted at the end of this work.

With regard to secular critics, Noll considers in succession Lewis’s scholarly and imaginative works, and finally his works of Christian exposition. Lewis drew general praise for both The Allegory of Love and for his Preface to Paradise Lost. A number affirmed his argument against E. M. W. Tillyard in The Personal Heresy that in criticism of a poet’s work, the focus should be on the subject matter of the poem and not the poet. Regarding the imaginative works, Noll describes the public as responding “ecstatically.” Noll highlight’s W.H. Auden’s review of The Great Divorce in The Saturday Review combining general praise with fine-grained critique. The widest range of critical opinion was reserved for his works of Christian exposition, from the long-searching response of Charles Hartshorne to a review in the New York Herald Tribune from a young Beloit College professor, Chad Walsh, who would quickly become know as a leading exponent of his work.

Apart from a patronizing review in The Christian Century, Protestants joined their secular counterparts in their warm reception of Lewis. Substantial interest among evangelicals in Lewis first came from conservative Presbyterians in the Westminster seminary circle as well as the first substantive criticism, particularly from a young Edmund Clowney. Wheaton’s Clyde Kilby represented a much more positive response to Lewis as did Wheaton student Elizabeth Howard (Eliot). Kilby’s work led to the donation of Lewis’s letters to Wheaton, forming the core of what would become the Wade Center collection. InterVarsity’s His Magazine also contributed to the growing awareness of Lewis in evangelical circles when it published a lengthy excerpt from The Case For Christianity.

Noll concludes the work in considering Lewis in today’s much more fragmented setting and what might be learned from Lewis’s greater concern for the state of his soul as a writer than the success of his work. The work also includes responses to each lecture. I found most interesting in these Kirk Farney’s discussion of two American contemporaries of Lewis who were also intelligent spokespersons for Christianity: Walter A. Maier of The Lutheran Hour and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen of The Catholic Hour. and the wide interest from people outside the church they enjoyed, as did Lewis. I can’t help wonder if there remains a space for such folk today. I’m thinking for example of the broad impact of the late Timothy Keller and the younger voices like Esau McCaulley and writers like Tish Harrison Warren.

Noll offers an excellent resource (aided by his wife) chronicling the early reviews of Lewis’s work, which I’ve only highlighted here. I’m struck that Catholics were early adopters and evangelicals relative latecomers. I’m impressed with the theological and scholarly sophistication of the writers and the elegant style of reviewers like Brady. How different things are in the BookTok era! This is a great resource for Lewis scholars and fans and a marvelous addition to the Hansen Lectureship series on the seven authors in the Wade Collection.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Evolution, Scripture, and Science

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9781532690143

Evolution, Scripture, and Science, B. B. Warfield (Edited by Mark A. Noll & David N. Livingstone). Eugene, Wipf & Stock, 2019 (originally published in 2000).

Summary: A collection of the writings of B.B. Warfield consisting of lectures, articles, and reviews showing his engagement with evolutionary writers and his conviction that scripture and science need not be in conflict.

B. B. Warfield (1851-1921) was know as a staunch advocate of the inspiration, infallibility, and authority of the Bible, and as a “Princeton theologian,” trained by Charles Hodge. What is lesser known was that he closely followed the scientific literature of his day concerning the developing theory of evolution and did not see that evolution and scripture inherently in conflict.

Mark Noll and David N. Livingstone have collected the writings of Warfield on the subject of evolutionary science. This includes lectures, articles, and excerpts from Warfield’s own writings as well as numerous reviews of articles and books by various writers on the subject. There are several things that impress me about Warfield:

  1. He both affirms the truthfulness of the Genesis accounts but is open to interpretations that do not insist on literal days, or use genealogical records to date when Adam was created.
  2. He insists on ex nihilo creation of the stuff of the cosmos, allows for providentially guided development, but insists on the creation of the human soul.
  3. His views develop over the course of his life. At one point, while allowing for evolutionary development under God’s providence, he advocated mediate creation. Later, after studying Calvin, he abandoned the idea of mediate creation and allowed for development and speciation.
  4. At the same time, he was willing to both affirm and critique various aspects of the writers of his day. His big issues were not evolution per se, but rather evolutionism that denied God’s providential involvement and the idea of randomness that denied teleology, the evidence of purpose in the development of life.
  5. He is, if anything more challenging in his remarks on theological writers when they deviate from orthodoxy than with science writers.
  6. He is unwilling to accept the fact/value dichotomy. He insists that theology and biology are both sciences, both are concerned with facts. Theology cannot be relegated to the subjective world of faith and emotion.

The editors provide an excellent essay on Warfield as a “conservative evolutionist.” Also each of the works are preceded by a brief summary.

It is sad that Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology shaped the public conception about Christianity’s response to evolutionary theory and science more generally, one sadly that even many Christians have adopted. Warfield called White’s work “special pleading,” projecting present controversies into a past when Christians were on the forefront of science and saw their investigations as giving glory to God, studying his revelation in the books of scripture and nature. It is sad that Warfield’s ideas did not gain greater currency in the culture and in the church.

At very least, this collection suggests that thoughtful Christians with a high view of scripture need not be at war with science. The state of evolutionary theory is far advanced from the time of Warfield and the discussions concern discarded aspects of the theory. Nevertheless, the model of respectful engagement, a theologian abreast with scientific research, a foundation of conviction with an openness to grow all commend Warfield as a model for those who would engage discussions between scripture and science. Wipf & Stock is to be commended for re-printing this work and keeping it in circulation.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: God and Race in American Politics

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God and RaceGod and Race in American Politics, Mark A. Noll. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Summary: This text explores the interwoven story of religion, race, and politics in American history, with a concluding theological reflection.

Mark Noll makes the observation in this book, derived from his Stafford Little Lectures at Princeton University in 2006, that we have one of the most enlightened political systems in human history and yet we have failed signally in the matter of race. From our beginnings we accepted the slave trade that treated forcibly seized Africans as cargo that were simply one more asset to serve American interests. After the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction, we settled for systemic injustices in the form of Jim Crow laws that a number would argue continue in some form down to the present.

What Noll does in this “short history” is look at the interplay of religious influences, shifting party affiliations and voting patterns and the continuing saga of race in America. As a careful scholar, he documents his narrative with numerous tables on denominational populations and party voting patterns by various states and populations.

He begins by looking at how the Bible was used to argue both for and against slavery. Interestingly, those who were pro-slavery held back from arguing for White slavery, revealing the racial animus behind this issue. In this racial divide he traces the origins and rise of African-American churches who would be a critical factor in years to come in civil rights advocacy. He concludes this chapter (2) with these prophetic words by W.E.B. DuBois:

“This nation will never stand justified before God until these things are changed….Especially are we surprised and astonished at the recent attitude of the church of Christ–on the increase of a desire to bow to racial prejudice, to narrow the bounds of human brotherhood, and to segregate black men in some outer sanctuary” (cited on p. 59).

The book traces the the failed efforts of Reconstruction (“Redemption” in the South) and the alignments of southern Whites (comprised of large Baptist and Methodist populations) with the Democratic Party while Blacks who could vote as well as northern Protestants aligned with “the party of Lincoln.” He recounts the rise of Jim Crow and the failure of the courts and political processes along with the lack of engagement (and some complicity) of white Evangelicals with these injustices.

Meanwhile, an African-American church was rising in organizational strength and the training of its pastors. Noll traces the antecedent influences on King and other civil rights leaders and how central the religious voice was to this movement.

A significant turning point came in 1964 with the passage of sweeping civil rights legislation under Democrat Lyndon Johnson. A major political realignment began, where the once Democratic white south became Republican, and the Democratic Party became one of northern liberals, mainline Protestants (a declining group) and ethnic minorities while Evangelicals and some Catholics identified with the small government, morally conservative policies of the Republicans.

One fascinating sidelight Noll observes is the emergence of southern Evangelicals on the national stage in this period. Having come out from an apparent identification with racism as a result of civil rights legislation, denominations like the Southern Baptists and figures like Jerry Falwell (and Bill Clinton) gain national platforms.

Noll concludes the book with a theological reflection. He notes the mixed history of Christian complicity with racial injustice and advocacy for civil rights and “the beloved community.” While not justifying the evils, he argues that in Christian theology’s understanding of both human evil and the redemptive arc of the gospel, there are the resources to help us neither be surprised by evil nor the acts of so many who selflessly pursue justice. It is a theology of realistic hope rather than starry-eyed optimism or pessimistic despair.

This is a book for anyone engaged in issues of racial reconciliation or who are trying to understand the complex interplay of religion and American politics around these issues. As in so many things, understanding where we’ve come from is critical to understanding where we are and discerning the road before us. This book can help.

 

Bringing Discipleship and Scholarship Together–Part Two

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Yesterday, I wrote that because scholarly communities are formative communities, Christians and other persons of faith who care about a seamless connection between belief and scholarship need to engage in what James K. A. Smith calls “thick formative practices” that foster that seamless connection.  The alternatives to this are assimilation into the prevailing worldview and values of one’s scholarly community at the loss of vibrant Christian faith, the bifurcation of life into sacred and secular categories resulting in privatized faith and a public embrace of the worldview of one’s discipline. A third alternative is the “embattled enclave” mentality, where one holds to one’s faith convictions but engages with one’s discipline from an exclusively conflict-oriented posture.

Today, I want to turn to what those “thick formative practices” might be. I would like to focus on four practices which I believe important to bringing our discipleship and scholarship together.

1. Cultivating practices of attentiveness to God in one’s life. Years ago, as a college student, I was taught the habit of “The Daily Quiet Time”. At times this is maligned as inflexible, or confining of God to one’s personal devotional life. This needn’t be the case and there are a variety of spiritual practices of attentiveness one may explore in these private times with God over a lifetime.  At the core of all of these practices is the idea of listening attentiveness to God, in prayer, in scripture, and in the examination of one’s life resulting in a response to God of joyful worship, trust in the practical matters of our lives, and obedience to the commands and precepts and personal insights from God that we gain in these times. What I and others are discovering more in recent years is that the habit of humble attentiveness is one that spills over into academic life, as we seek to attend to the creation, to data, to other voices–listening for the promptings of God–sometimes in the form of questions that turn into research questions, sometimes in terms of insights.

life of the mind book

2. Learning to think Christianly about all of life. This practice flows from the practices of attentiveness as we consider, what is God’s pleasure in this area of research, this area of human activity, this personal endeavor, this relationship? But there are two additional pieces that the scholar-disciple needs to cultivate. One is a devotion to study of Christian sources: the Bible with the end of understanding God’s redemptive story as that is worked out from cover to cover, the basic contours of Christian belief captured in creeds, confessions, and theological works, and at least some understanding of Christian history and how believing people have confronted life’s greatest questions over two millenia. It is often helpful to ask how the truth we encounter bears on the questions of our disciplines. Mark Noll in Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind gives us a wonderful example of how reflecting on Christology, our beliefs about Christ, inform questions in various disciplines. The other is study in and practice of one’s chosen discipline where one is consistently asking God for insight into the underlying worldview, the questions, findings and practices of one’s discipline. In some cases these may be consistent with Christian conviction, in some cases they actually reflect a creative outworking of that conviction, and sometimes at the level of ideas, sometimes at the level of ethics, we will find ourselves differing. My sense of how this seems to work for many is the movement from disparate things (faith and scholarship) to strands of connection, to a seamless garment over the course of years of thought, exploration, questioning, and discussion.

3. Engagement in Christian scholarly communities.  One of the paradoxes of scholarly life is that one is both deeply embedded in a formative community of fellow scholars, and yet often working in a solitary fashion. Temperament may reinforce this as many, though not all, academics are introverts. Certainly an important element is involvement with a diverse worshiping community beyond the university that reminds us of the relevance of our faith beyond our own contexts. At the same time, via physical communities in one’s own university, virtual communities online, and the written works of others wrestling with questions similar to ours, we sharpen our insights and strengthen our resolves to live faithfully in our own contexts. The “Inklings” with which C. S. Lewis, Tolkien and others gathered to read and critique work is an outstanding example of this (which also included friends who didn’t share their beliefs). In another context, William Wilberforce’s efforts to abolish slavery were greatly enhanced by a community of religious leaders, businessmen and scholars committed to working out the implications of Christian faith for the benefit of British society and the glory of God.

4. Practicing intellectual hospitality and engagement in one’s context.  I posted recently on some of the contours of intellectual hospitality so I won’t reiterate all of that here. In brief, I would say that in the departmental or professional context where one works there are opportunities to the practices of Christian charity, courtesy, and courage. Charity means welcoming colleagues or peers as Christ has welcomed us and treating them as valued human beings regardless their views. Courtesy calls us to afford the ideas and beliefs of others the same respect we would wish for our own. It also can mean accepting the hospitality of peers and colleagues–both in terms of personal friendship, and in terms of intellectual exchange. And finally it may sometimes call for courage in being honest about our faith where the situation requires it, even while we seek to be charitable rather than belligerent, and willing to listen as well as to speak. Sometimes, speaking to a Christian student group or as part of a public discussion hosted by such a group involves practicing this courage. This is not a call to proselytize in class but rather a call not to “duck” when we are given opportunities to be honest about our identity or speak about how our faith contributes insight to important disciplinary questions.

I would appreciate hearing the insights of others in bring faith and scholarship together. In a world where these two are so polarized, and often function antagonistically toward each other, it seems this is a vital discussion.