{"id":1516,"date":"2020-07-09T12:08:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T16:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2020-07-09T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T16:14:18","slug":"liberated-by-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/liberated-by-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberated by History"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I have been taught history (a subject I love) in a myriad of ways. Fortunately, not as a series of dates to be memorized but as political movements and change influenced by \u00a0disease, technological, medical advances, religion, nationalism, power, and personality.<\/p>\n

In seminary I had the great good fortune of reading Justo Gonzalez’ two volume history of the Christian Church. Imagine telling the story of the early Christian church through the challenges that ignited differing theologies and their struggle for primacy and the intersection of politics and nation building with growth of Christianity. HIs history telling is a well researched and clear-eyed exploration of how the political and theological world as we know it came into being.<\/p>\n

I wish we taught history this way so that people could see the development and \u00a0movement of ideas. Could engage with ideas about how we are connected and \u00a0how today is built on what has gone before.I wish we were able to accept historical figures as bound by their time and examine how they were a part of moving us and our ideals, understandings, and values into our present.<\/p>\n

As a working theologian, I am always aware that I am in dialogue with ideas that have come before and that my new perspective can offer correction or challenge. But the\u00a0Ideas of those who lived and struggled before us are important because they open the dialogue. \u00a0Liberation, Black, Womanist, Feminist, Process, \u00a0or any other theology does not exist in a vacuum. We are all a part of global, historical conversations about faith and our understanding of the universe. \u00a0We are informed by science, history, and the constant influx of new information, new generations and populations. For me, Christianity is not about what people believed or how they lived over two thousand years ago. It is about what remains relevant at its core. How the truths of the faith engage with present reality.<\/p>\n

Is it not important to know that the world view of first century Christians was very different from our world view today? How can it not be. The same with our politics. It is important to ask the questions of the framers of the Constitution. How were they bound by history and culture? How did they contribute to the conversation that has moved us into where we are today in the struggle for freedom? Do we need to reject what we now see as absolutely unacceptable? of course. But I truly believe we must also see ourselves in a historical relationship that, by its very nature, encourages the tough conversations we are having as a nation today around race, gender, personhood, and human rights.<\/p>\n

As a nation, our history is built on what is often called ‘the Great Experiment.’ \u00a0Rather than reject what and who have come before us, let us do what all experimenters do: build on what works and reject that which does not. This nation is built on glorious ideas tried for the first time in thousands of years (if you think of Athens as a democracy, and then it makes my point that American democracy took much of what worked in Athenian democracy, discarded the rest, and built on it for the then modern age.) We must move forward informed by new voices, differing experiences, new ways of perceiving both the mistakes and the triumphs of our historical past.<\/p>\n

May our new understandings of history liberate us to the work of making real the promises of our shared dream.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been taught history (a subject I love) in a myriad of ways. Fortunately, not as a series of dates to be memorized but as political movements and change influenced by \u00a0disease, technological, medical advances, religion, nationalism, power, and personality. In seminary I had the great good fortune of reading Justo Gonzalez’ two volume … Continue reading Liberated by History<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,8,21,23,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1521,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions\/1521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}