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Welcome to another in the series 'Why Study', of the Department of Theology and Religious
Studies. With me today I have Dr Frances Knight, who teaches Modern Church History, and she's
going to attempt to answer the question: Why study modern church history? So Frances why
study it?
Well my first and most simple answer is simply because it's there, it's a brute fact. I mean,
modern church history and the modern church has had an enormous impact on the modern world,
obviously in the west, and in recent centuries more broadly, right across the spectrum of
the world. So because it's there. As I came onto the university campus on the bus this
morning I passed one cathedral and several churches, and so the physical evidence of
modern church history is still very much with us. People sometimes ask me what is meant
by 'modern', how do you understand the concept of 'modern'?
[Off camera] Good Question.
And it tends to be 1800 to the present, so I sometimes say this is a syllabus that gets
a year longer every year, which can seem slightly daunting I think. But 1800 tends to be the
starting point, which is of course immediately after the French Revolution and it's when
society is seen as moving into its modern phase. So that's how it's used in church history,
quite different I suppose from how it would be used in art or architecture - where one
would tend to think of modern and modernism as being 1890 to 1950, or something like that,
so I think it's a very legitimate question to ask is: What is modern church history and
when does it start?
Tell me, when people study any form of history they tend to get involved in the debates,
what are the key debates in modern church history?
Well one of the big ones, which is a very ongoing issue, is the question of secularisation,
and in another of these films you can hear our colleague, Dr Simon Oliver, discussing
secularisation from the point of view of a theologian. For church historians it's slightly
different I think. The conversation seems to be framed, within the understanding
that clearly fewer people in the year 2000 were going to church, than they were in 1800,
as a proportion of the population. Fewer were church goers, but it's not therefore a simple
question of simply deciding at what point people became less prone to church going.
There are a whole variety of issues which immerge. What, besides church going, can be
taken as a signifier of secularisation and what other sorts of issues can be understood
in this way. But that is one of the debates which has been going on for a very long time
I think, and it has got a lot more complex as time has gone on. I think from a very kind
of simple position, of assuming that society was becoming a whole lot more secular, to
a much more complicated position, of realising that different societies have become secular,
and are experiencing secularisation at very different rates and very different ways.
Could you give me an example of how society has experienced secularisation at different rates?
Well I suppose one issue would be the changing relationships with state churches. In Europe
most, if not all, countries had relations... churches had relations with... the state acknowledged
one particular church as its state church, and we've seen the process of disestablishment
occur in many, but not of course all, states in the course of Europe over the last 150
years or so.
Apart from secularisation, what would a modern church historian study?
A whole variety of issues, I think one particular issue, which is proving to be quite controversial
at the moment, is the fallout, if one can call it that, from the beatification of John
Henry Newman, which occurred just a month in fact before we were having this conversation.
We're making this film in November 2010 and about a month ago Pope Benedict was in Britain
and beatified a nineteenth century theologian, John Henry Newman in Birmingham. Okay tell
us why this is significant to study.
Well it is actually producing quite an interesting row at the moment. The current issue of the
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, which is one of the leading journals in our field,
contains a very interesting article by Simon Skinner, who is a historian in Oxford, who
is really criticising the way in which a whole variety of theologians have commented on Newman.
And he's actually defending a book which has been written recently by Frank Turner, and
this particular book has been very harshly reviewed by large numbers of very pro-Newman
theologians. And he's really saying that these theologians need to stop masquerading as historians
and they need to get off Newman's case. So this is an interesting example of a row which
is happening at the present time. We don't normally have rows in the modern period because
the area is so large that there's usually enough stuff for us to be exploring without
us needing to fall over each other and have rows, but this is an example of a particular
moment of tension, it seems to me.
You've touched on something there, and that is the way a historian looks at something
is different from the way a theologian looks at something. Would you like to comment on
how you think a historian is different to a theologian?
Well I am unhappy with the idea of there being too large a division between historians and
theologians, I think there is a role for history in departments of theology and religious studies,
like ours. And I'm unhappy with the notion that historians should only operate within
history departments, and that they should stand clear of theology. But obviously historians,
if they are going to be taken seriously, need to practise the historical discipline, in
ways which historians... if... theologians, if they are going to be taken seriously, need
to practise the historical discipline, in ways which historians will find acceptable.
I once heard it described by someone, that you must take your method from history, but
you can take your questions from theology. How would you stand with a statement like
that?
Well I suppose it depends what the questions are, but I'd certainly be willing to listen
to the questions and accept that that might be a method that would be helpful to pursue.
When a theologian... theologians tend to almost see history as noise, I've often noticed that
they're trying to get to a pure question. To an extent aren't historians just muddying
the waters and saying it's all more complex?
No I don't think so, I think we need to understand that religion never happens in a historical
vacuum, Christianity is a profoundly historically rooted religion, every Christian thinker is
thinking in a particular context. And it seems to me you can't understand any Christian thinker,
or his ideas, unless you have a very clear sense of where he's rooted.
So theology never takes place in a historical vacuum?
I don't believe so, I don't believe it should - it may do, but I don't believe it should.
Right now tell me, if I am to start studying modern church history where do I begin?
Well there is a new series which is coming out from I.B. Tauris, it's the I.B. Tauris
'History of the Christian Church', it's in, I think, seven volumes and...
And I see you've contributed one to the story.
I have indeed, which is why I'm rather vainly promoting this here...
You won't be the first in this series and you won't be the last!
This is my contribution on the nineteenth century, but it is a very accessible series,
which is designed for beginners. And it's designed to give people an entry into the
subject, beginning with the early church and concluding with the twentieth century.
Frances it's been great talking to you and thank you for coming here today.
[off camera] Thank you.
Theology is many things and history is many things, and in talking to Frances I hope you,
as a student, have realised that there is a discipline which is both historical and
theological and it's called church history. Thanks Frances.
[off camera] Thank you.
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