THIS MONTH
Involvement in Ministry
Abe Friesen
Read about Abe Friesen's lifelong work as an historian, and his tenure as a professor of history at UC Santa Barbara. Abe comes to his work with a special interest in church history and its influence on Anabaptist theology, so early in his career he wrestled with questions of how his personal faith should influence his approach to scientific inquiry and to teaching. Informed by an Old Testament account of interactions between Aaron and David, Abe discovered common ground between his profession and his faith. In historical inquiry and in teaching, whether the subject was friend or foe to the faithful, he attempted to maintain a professional distance. He writes, "I always tried to allow the person – or the event – to speak for him or herself. Everyone was entitled to a fair hearing. My faith in a just God demanded that I treat everyone fairly and honestly. Because this humanizing approach demonstrated Christian ethics, he writes, "There was no dichotomy between what I was as a Christian, how or what I taught in my profession, or how I appropriated what I learned for myself." Below, Abe reflects on how his Christian faith influenced his work as a university professor.
The Christian & His Profession
The believer and his profession: I had never given this problem much thought as I was getting my university education. History was, in any case, the story of the children of God, whether children in rebellion or children of obedience. Could one not serve God equally well doing secular history, whether Canadian, American or European? Or even Asian history, for that matter? What had really turned me on to history was, after all, not some segment of the human story, but the study of the historical method, the “science” of history: how one analyzed an historical document; how one transposed a series of seemingly unrelated documents into a coherent story; whether one could write impartial history; whether it was true, as the Post-Modernists were beginning to tell us, that there were no really overarching human story, but only individual stories, individual truths. Truth with a capital T was a figment of the human imagination. In the field of Reformation studies this post-modernist tendency manifested itself in the so-called “polygenesis thesis” of Anabaptist origins. That is, that revolutionaries were just as much Anabaptist as the non-violent or pacifist Anabaptists.
Since one had to have an actual “field of history” in order to get a job – historical method was useful but not marketable – I fell into studying Canadian and American history. But then, as Providence would have it, I went to Germany on a scholarship in 1957 and met a great uncle of mine, a man of 75 years who had expended his entire life serving his fellow believers in Germany. One day in conversation I told him that I had little use for the contemporary brand of Mennonites. Perhaps, he responded, contemporary Mennonites were no longer the real thing. Was I not an historian? Did I not know that movements lose their original purity and vigor over time, that faith cannot be passed from one generation to another, that it must always be experienced afresh by each generation? If I really wanted to know what Anabaptism / Mennonitism was all about, I should do what every good historian would do – study it at its source, its origin. That conversation not only changed the direction of my studies, it changed the direction of my life. I turned to the study of the Renaissance and the Reformation with its rich history of intellectual and religious issues, not least of all the birth of Anabaptism. Little did I know at the time that I was not only embarking upon a new field of studies more closely related to my faith, but that I was embarking upon a life-long quest to understand myself in light of the history of my church.
Shortly after arriving at UC Santa Barbara in the summer of 1967 I initiated a new lecture course on The Development of History as a Discipline. In it I covered the various approaches historians had taken to their discipline from the Greeks to the 20th century. While studying the Old Testament approach to history I encountered the story of Nathan and David. I was struck, for here was the prophet Nathan, God’s servant, having to confront his hero, King David, with his adultery. Could he have done so as impartially as he did without being aware that his God, the God of justice, was looking over his shoulder? At that point I realized that the Christian historian has no option but to deal honestly with his material, he has to deal with it as under God. He dare not be partial, biased, or blind to the truth. The Post-Modernists were wrong; there was a larger human story and it was guided by the hand of Providence. I learned this lesson so well that my students, while they knew that I was a Christian, could not tell if I favored anyone of the cast of characters that made their appearances in my lectures. Invariably they wanted to know where I came down in the Reformation conflict at the end of the class.
About ten years into my tenure at Santa Barbara I also, with a Catholic colleague, began to teach the history of European Christianity; my time period being 1300 to the present. Together with my Renaissance and Reformation courses, I could here deal with the great issues of the faith: reason and revelation; free will and predestination; Church and State; war and peace; the Christ of faith and the Christ of history, etc. In my large Western Civilization Class of around 800 students, I always gave a major lecture on Luther’s conversion experience. But whether it was a religious personality or a secular revolutionary, I always tried to allow the person – or the event – to speak for him or herself. Everyone was entitled to a fair hearing. My faith in a just God demanded that I treat everyone fairly and honestly. And, in any case, Luther and the Anabaptists made a much better case for Christianity than I could ever have done. And no one could accuse me of proselytizing. Marxists on the faculty did that, but not I as a Christian. The content of my course offerings spoke for me. And so there was no dichotomy between what I was as a Christian, how or what I taught in my profession, or how I appropriated what I learned for myself.