For Associate Professor of History Richard Gamble and many other devout Christians, a clear line of redemptive history stretches through the Bible. This story, when properly studied and understood with the aid of divine revelation, reveals much about God and his purposes.
To apply the same strategies to the study of history, however, is to wander down a potentially dangerous path, Gamble warned in his March 11 lecture.
Gamble’s address opened the Fairfield Society’s new series on “Life of Faith in the academy.” This annual series features one professor selected for the integration of his or her Christian faith into both teaching and scholarship. In their lectures, selected professors may deal with any aspect of the relationship between faith and scholarship, said senior Alex Meregaglia, Fairfield Society president .
Gamble entitled his lecture “Cain versus Cain: The Futile Quest for the One Story of History: Reflections on Christian Faith and Historical Consciousness.”
“I’ve never done two subtitles,” Gamble joked. “I’m excited.”
In his lecture, Gamble dealt with the difficult task of thinking about history as both a devout Christian and as an able historian. He argued that, although he believes that God’s hand guides history, man must be wary of claiming to clearly discern God’s justice in the events of nations.
“A sacred thread of redemptive history runs from Genesis to Revelation,” Gamble said.
He specified that only divine revelation makes this thread clearly evident.
He explained that searching for similarly sacred threads in the course of history, particularly American history, is a dangerous undertaking. All too often, Gamble said, nations and organizations claim a holy status, presuming to act as the driving force of God’s justice on earth. Such claims prove shallow, however, compared with the inscrutable and complex will of God.
“Bad things happen to bad people. Good things happen to good people,” Gamble said. “A satisfying story, but wrong.”
Citing Augustine’s “City of God,” Gamble drew a comparison between the holy city, represented by Abel, and the earthly city, represented by Cain. He warned that nations ought not think of themselves as a “holy city” or a righteous Abel. All too often, Gamble said, conflicts are of this world, with an earthly cities, or Cains, striving against one another.
Gamble cited numerous occurrences in history where nations or organizations, such as the Union army during the Civil War, claimed the status of God’s chosen, saying that such claims act as substitutes for true Christian thought that “retain the language and symbols but subvert the meanings.”
Ultimately, he explained, those who interpret historical events solely in terms of God’s justice end up distorting the truth. Those who view the United States as the paragon of virtue inevitably focus on the good while overlooking the bad. Historians must weigh a multitude of details, and they must be leery of definitively interpreting divine purpose in events.
Without the aid of divine revelation, Gamble concluded, “The quest for the one story of history asks something impossible of our profession.”