[Tom O'Loughlin] With me I have Dr David Gehring from
the department of history here in Nottingham.
And I'm a historian in a Theology Department.
and David is a historian in
a history department but working on religion, and
I thought would be interesting for us to have a discussion
about the connection between religion and history.
[David] Where do we start? If we're,
if we're thinking about the Reformation, right?
If we're thinking about.... [Tom] Yes, let's
let's use the Reformation as our,
as our, as our case study.
[David] I like it. [Tom] Good. [David] If we're thinking about
the Reformation of the 16th century, or even more properly,
the reformations, in the plural, of the 16th century,
religion cannot be separated from politics,
politics, religion, broader society, cultural developments.
And so any historian of
the period of the 16th century or the 17th century
needs to be not only mindful
of the place of religion
in broader social and political developments,
but also oftentimes give
religion pride of place, not just be mindful.
And so in my own work,
I'm very much a historian of ideas of politics,
of international relations and diplomacy.
But I'm really interested in how
religion in the Reformation can be
seen as very much a driving or
even motivating force for people in their everyday lives,
for governments,
in their domestic policies and foreign policies.
And so religion in history,
religion and history really for me,
go hand in glove for the 16th century.
[Tom] And we, we tend to treat religion as,
as if it's almost a peripheral accidental interest.
And that means that we, we,
when we look back to the past,
we look back to the 16th century,
we find it very hard to realize that here's
a society for whom theological argument is
as crucial a matter of life and death as
the debates I remember in my youth
between the communist and the capitalist systems.
[David] It's the bread and butter of the day.
It is what's on the mind constantly, right?
It was, it was said interestingly,
one of the first great historians of the Reformation was writing
his commentaries on the affairs
during the reign of Charles the fifth.
This is Johann Sleidan publishing the first great,
great history of the Reformation.
And towards the end of it, he points out
that religion and politics cannot be separated.
And nor should they be separated.
You need to understand the two together.
And so I think it's a nice reminder for us in the 21st century,
studying the Reformation, studying
the 16th century in any aspect,
really, it's a reminder that we need to
be thinking about religion alongside politics.
And we need to be thinking about how they
really do need to be understood together.
[Tom] The other fascinating thing is that I
remember watching with horror in 2001,
the attack on the twin towers.
And I remember a commentator saying something like,
'what could drive people to do this?'
And I remember thinking if you actually had read our history,
this isn't something being done by
people who are very different to us.
It's being done by people who are very similar to us,
except we're, we, we don't think in that way anymore.
[David] It was immediately recognizable to
those who have an appreciation of religious history.
I remember that morning as if it were yesterday.
That moment for me was very much
like the assassination of
JFK for a previous generation in my country.
But for me, there wasn't so much a sense of confusion.
'Why would somebody do that?'
It was, it was, it became fairly
clear and fairly obvious what was going on.
And I think that it made, that particular moment in
the American consciousness, made
the importance of religious history that much clearer.
[Tom] That then raises an interesting question for the, for,
for us as historians.
You know the old joke, 'The past is a foreign country.
They do things differently there?' Right, ok.
How do you, when you're talking to people in our society,
actually think your way back
into this very different world
where religion has a far more central,
and far more dangerous position.
[David] It's a great question,
but I would probably start by taking
issue with the notion that it's so very different. [Tom] ok.
[David] Because the Reformation world is, yes,
it may be a foreign country,
'the past is a foreign country,'
but it's a foreign country
I tend to visit frequently,
and so it's familiar to me in certain ways,
and I think it's actually familiar,
the 16th century is actually far more familiar
to the 21st than people recognize.
[Tom] Okay. [David] They just might not be attuned to it.
And so that's why I think an understanding
of history, of the past, is important
but also most certainly
the religious past and religious history.
[Tom] Well, one of the things I was trying to
tease you towards is, that
my own feeling is that we think of
the historian as someone who works with documents,
the archivist, the recorder,
and the digger-outer of dates and so forth.
But also to be a historian is actually,
you actually have to have creative sympathy.
You actually have,
there's an act, there's a jump of
the imagination to try and get inside this other society.
And I, I think
certainly when I'm talking to undergraduates, they,
they think that history is just collecting
facts and they forget that being a historian
is actually a way of being creative.
You actually have to, you actually have to,
you said you visited this place.
But it's very much like the activity of going on holiday.
You actually have to get into it.
[David] You need to get into it and you need
to try to make sense of it.
And when you try to make sense of it from the documents,
from the books, from the various accounts we have,
we try to make sense of it not only in
our own printed works, the
the books that we write as historians,
the journal articles we publish,
but also in the classroom,
like you say with your undergraduates.
And that's when we can try to use our creativity,
use our imagination sometimes to
bring the past to life in all of its,
in all of its colour in all of its glory,
but also all of its warts. [Tom] Yeah.
[David], You know, sometimes the past isn't particularly nice.
[Tom] David, thank you very much.
[David] You're very welcome.