History Book: Pages of the past

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough. Up next the WORLD History Book.

For the past year, the History Book has been shaped by a growing team of contributors—you’ve heard them.

This week, we hear from Paul Butler as he looks back on a decade of stories, going back to the early days of this regular feature, and the transition to a new generation of history buffs that’s already underway.

PAUL BUTLER: On August 3rd, 2015, I voiced my very first WORLD Radio History Book segment.

BUTLER: We begin today with August 2nd, 1923. President Warren G. Harding — in office for only about two-and-a-half years — dies suddenly during a trip to California...

After voicing, writing, or producing nearly 500 History Book segments. Today is my last.

When I started, producer and co-host Joseph Slife wrote the segment and I just got to voice it. Over time, I began writing the segment more and more myself. Since 2017, I’ve been the one primarily responsible for the weekly segment.

One of the modern scholars who influenced my approach to History Book is independent historian Larry Eskridge:

ESKRIDGE: One of the great things about history is that it is the study of everything. Every dimension of life that you could imagine, social, economic, military, political, religious, theological—it's all history.

Eskridge used to study American evangelicals at Wheaton College.

ESKRIDGE: Inevitably, if you want to understand the world in which you live, you need to have some context.

Many of the stories featured each week have been of general interest. But we’ve also tried to consistently highlight Christian history.

ESKRIDGE: Sometimes when you look at your own particular strain of Christianity there's some characters who were questionable and that's a[n] exercise which can help you think a more Christianly, I'd say about your own situation and time.

It’s hard to narrow down my favorite segments over the last 10 years, but here are some highlights of a few of them:

BUTLER: We begin with February 24th, in the year 303 — the first of four edicts is published by Roman emperor Diocletian, prohibiting Christians from gathering for worship.

Ryan M. Reeves is an Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

REEVES: Across the vast majority of the Roman Empire, the Christians experience the harshest persecutions that they would ever face…

Diocletian’s persecution of the Church does not work as he hoped. The church does not fracture, but rather, grows stronger.

March 9th, 1831 — American Presbyterian minister and evangelist Charles Finney concludes a six-month series of meetings in Rochester, New York. The revival marks the peak of America’s Second Great Awakening. The New York meetings lead to the closing of many city theaters and taverns, and crime falls by two-thirds. As many as 100,000 people reportedly are converted during the event.

According to Mark Noll, Professor of History at University of Notre Dame, Charles Finney’s legacy is clearly seen in modern evangelicalism.

NOLL: Things like preaching for a decision, things like asking people to make a commitment to Christ at the end of a meeting had been very rarely done before Finney’s time. He became a master of this sort of activity. And these have been characteristics that have been quite prominent since his time in America and especially American Protestant history.

We begin with October 22nd, 1844. That’s the day Baptist lay-minister William Miller predicted Christ’s return. Miller arrived at the date by comparing Daniel’s prophecies and Revelation to historical events and computed a timeline for the end of the world.

As many as 100-thousand so-called Millerites believed him:

ROWE: Some of them quit their jobs in order to get ready for the end. Some people gave away their possessions.

David Rowe is professor emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University and author of God’s Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World.

ROWE: There were people who confessed to crimes, people who solved long-standing disputes with neighbors or with family members, but for the most part people just prayed and, and gathered with their families...

When October 22nd, 1844 came—and went—without any visible sign of Christ’s return, the day became known as the “great disappointment.”

ROWE: It was a pretty shattering experience for all of them really...

There are many others I’d like to highlight, but just one more. It’s from August 3rd, 2020. It marked the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims setting sail from Holland. It was a personal story for me as my wife is a direct descendant of John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrims.

BUTLER: In the summer of 1620, about 100 separatists left Holland for England. The Pilgrims’ pastor, John Robinson, had stayed behind in Holland with the rest of the church. He sends a farewell letter to be read aloud before they set out on the next part of their journey.

ROBINSON: Though I be constrained for a while to be bodily absent from you...Make account of me in the meanwhile as of a man divided in myself with great pain, and as having my better part with you.

Robinson ends his letter much like his farewell sermon a couple weeks earlier, commending them into the hand of their Creator.

ROBINSON: I do earnestly commend unto your care and conscience, that He who hath made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all rivers of water, and whose providence is over all His works, would so guide and guard you in your ways...inwardly by His Spirit...outwardly by the hand of His power...fare you well in Him in whom you trust, and in whom I rest. - John Robinson

When I first worked on the History Book, I stepped into a feature Joseph Slife had built from the beginning. Since then, it’s been my privilege to steward and shape it. Over the past year, I’ve been gradually stepping back, working with a growing team of younger writers to pass History Book along in the same spirit. So it continues—and I’m grateful to have been part of it.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

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