God and Country: An Interview with John D. Wilsey
John D. Wilsey is Professor of Church History and Philosophy and the Chair of the Department of Church History and Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an avid night-time hiker, voracious reader, and the author of several books on various aspects of American religion and politics, including God’s Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles and Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. The following interview is based on his new book, appropriately timed for the year of America’s 250th birthday, God and Country: Upholding Faith, History, and National Identity.
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Nadya Williams: You are a Christian historian and you teach at a seminary. This means that you see theology and faith as very much connected to the study of history. And this connection is at the heart of this book—I came away from it encouraged to keep thinking in earnest about how to do history well as a Christian. Can you tell us a bit more about this vision? Why should Christians bring their faith and their theological thinking with them to their study of history?
John D. Wilsey: To think Christianly is to think historically. When we affirm the Apostle’s Creed, we are affirming historical events that occurred in real places, in real time, by real persons. Christianity is unique in that it is essentially based upon history, not metaphors, symbols, or myths. It is not even based on laws, parables, or wise sayings, although these help us understand the truths of the gospel with greater clarity. Followers of Christ, or “little Christs,” base their faith in a Person, the God-Man. Christians’ faith is built upon what that Person taught, did, promised, and fulfilled.
A lot of people think they don’t like history, but Christians instinctively love history because history is essential to the faith. So beginning from a reverence for redemption history, Christians may follow up with a similar reverence for extra-biblical history. Church history, American history, Japanese history, history of ideas, history of science, history of ethics, history of history—the relevance of these and other historical disciplines emerges in stark relief when we truly reckon with the profound significance history has on how we see reality—past, present, and future.
Nadya Williams: On a related note, you are concerned that many Christians in the pews who care deeply about theology and their faith may not care quite so much about learning their nation's history. You make the case in your book, though, that it is vital for American Christians to take the study of American history seriously--a topic obviously timely to talk about in the year of America's 250th birthday! Can you explain a little bit why you think it is so important for Christians to study their nation's history?
John D. Wilsey: Cicero wrote that to be ignorant of the past is to remain always a child. Nadya, I know you can particularly appreciate a reference to the great Tully! American Christians ought to study American history because they are part of the ongoing life of the nation. We are products of its past, for good and for ill. We are shaping America in the present for what it will be in the future—the future that our children and grandchildren will inherit when we are gone. American history is not some abstraction, some boring class we are forced to take. It is our societal and national life story. American history is our possession, and it is a precious possession.
Furthermore, going back to the Cicero reference—to cultivate a fully formed conscience, one must come to knowledge and understanding of the past. And what better subject of past time to come to knowledge and understanding of, than of one’s own nation? The question ought not to be, why should American Christians take American history seriously? The question is, why on earth would they not? We neglect history at our own peril, and at the peril of those who would come after us.
Nadya Williams: You devote a lot of this book to what you call "practical historical thinking." Can you explain what you mean by this?
John D. Wilsey: By practical historical thinking, I mean to differentiate ordinary intellectual considerations in gaining understanding of the past—what historians call the “5 Cs of historical thinking”—from moral considerations in historical thinking, that is, the application of virtue in thinking historically. Practical historical thinking involves taking change, context, causality, contingency, and complexity into account when studying a life lived, an idea expressed, or an event occurring at some point in the past. Such considerations are basic to grasping the relevance of the past, as well as its meaning, not only for our own day, but also for past time that is subsequent to a particular life, idea, or event.
Nadya Williams: At one point in the book, you give this advice that seems unusual at first glance: "If you are looking for a way to bring history to life, do a counterintuitive activity. Go to a burial ground and visit the dead." Can you tell a little bit about this exercise and how it might help us grow in historical thinking?
John D. Wilsey: Maybe it is because I have this weird trait in my personality, that I am fascinated by cemeteries and love to visit them, that I made this statement.
Visiting a cemetery provides one with an immediate sense of his or her mortality. One would have to be a nitwit of the first order to visit a cemetery and come away with no awareness of what the dead say to us as we mark their grave—“As you are now, I once was; as I am, you one day will be.”
Human mortality is one of the absolutes of nature. When we go to a cemetery, we are confronted by human mortality in a direct way, unlike any other place we can experience. So, it is a humbling exercise, and it is good to be reminded that, whatever talents, wealth, charm, or strength we have and no matter what contributions we make in this life, one day it will all come to an end. We are invited to think of another world, a world to which we will all go at a time not necessarily of our choosing. And in thinking of that other world, we can consider the way we are spending our time in the present.
But cemeteries also invite us to consider the past. A grave marker with a name, a birth-year, and a death year stand as a testimony to the presence, the nearness of the past to us. The grave marker tells us that this person who is no more, once was! She was a living, breathing soul at one point in the past. To see the grave of a loved one is a reminder that this person was once real, and not just a character in a story. To visit the grave of a famous person, like JFK at Arlington National Cemetery, is to see that this person we read about in books, or see in black and white filmstrips, who led an enormously consequential life—was a real person. Here are where their mortal remains lie.
Visiting a cemetery forces us to think about the past, to begin to think along the lines of the 5 Cs. More importantly, it forces to think morally about the past. Since these were living persons in the past, we are morally obligated to think about them virtuously.
Nadya Williams: How would you describe the relationship between this book and your previous book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer?
John D. Wilsey: In a lot of ways, the two books are similar. Both advocate for a conservative disposition, that is, a perspective that is oriented toward the past, rather than the present or the future. In the conservative primer, I have a chapter on thinking historically as a conservative, and another on rightly ordered patriotism.
But this new book is more focused on arguing for a rightly ordered love of country that is founded on good historical thinking. I argue that one cannot be a good patriot if one is not a good historical thinker. So, while the conservative primer is broadly applied to conservatism and religious freedom, God and Country is narrowly applied to the question of patriotism.
The audience is a bit different, too. In God and Country, I am speaking to church leaders, Christian educators, and Christian people who are grappling with the meaning of patriotism in these heady days of Christian nationalism on one side and national iconoclasm on the other. Can a Christian be an American patriot without compromising their witness as a faithful Christian? I answer yes, because rightly ordered love of country is a form of neighbor-love.
Nadya Williams: You've now written not one but two books about faith, history, and how to love one's country well--while thinking historically. So I have to ask: how are you planning to celebrate America's 250th?
John D. Wilsey: We in our family are going to celebrate America this year by visiting historical sites around the country. We will visit some national parks, battlefields, cemeteries, and monuments. I have taken my family to see many of these kinds of sites over the years, but our children are now of an age where they can begin to cultivate a more sophisticated perspective on them.
We also love good American stories in film. I talk about a list of movies I have complied over the years that I call the “Wilsey Re-Education Program.” That appellation is tongue-in-cheek of course, but it is meant to serve as something of a critique of film after the death of the American monoculture. Movies like Glory, Gettysburg, Patton, The Wind and the Lion, A Night to Remember, and The Last of the Mohicans are part of the Program. In our family, we love these movies and will watch many of them to observe the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence.
You could say that we are going to do things that a Dad would conjure up in his imagination! We’ll thread up the movies and eat junk food. We’ll pile in the car and road trip around the country to visit historic sites. My children are getting older, and there are fewer and fewer opportunities to do this sort of thing with them. I aspire to faithfully steward the best of American tradition for their sake, and for the sake of their children—my grandchildren—so that they can enjoy the inheritance that I received from my ancestors.