In his short book, Why Study History, Rowan Williams explains that modernity has an odd relationship with history. The past is not ‘the present in fancy dress.’[1] At times theologians have treated the past as if accounts from the past just need to be repristinated for today. It is enough to repeat what has already been said as long as what has already been said is true. At times respect for the past has bordered on thoughtless idolatry. There can be a false confidence that what has been said by our predecessors—if they are from the tribe we like—is self-evidently right and final. Yet the past isn’t just the present in fancy dress. Williams is right to say that “Superficial correspondence in what’s done or said should not mislead us as to the labour needed for understanding.”[2] He goes on to explain that “A Christian in fourth-century Antioch, another in eleventh-century Bremen, and another in fifteenth-century Paris may be saying very similar things about certain matters at first sight” but what exactly they might mean by those things may be quite different given their conceptual frameworks.[3]
Rowan William’s words have a lot to say to some recent efforts at theological retrieval.
[1] Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past? The Quest for the Historical Church (Eerdmans: 2005), 88.
[2] Williams, Why Study the Past?, 88.
[3] Williams, Why Study the Past?, 89.
CWoznicki Think Out Loud 