What is the Truth about History? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    This article merits serious thought from all philosophical viewpoints.

    It asks a serious question: How do you know if what history tells is accurate and truthful?

    I view it from the standpoint of a Bible scholar who had to stand in a pulpit each Sunday and try to convey "truth without mixture of error." It is especially hard if what you know to be true does not coincide with general perceptions of small southern towns where I served. You can pretend "it didn't happen," but what if you KNOW the truth "to be otherwise?"

    A case in point is the history of Southern Baptists in which I was reared. My father was an honest and wise Minister who told me much about his experience. It was not always what I wished had happened in a "perfect world of religious activities" which many pretend exists. His first experience of "Baptist politics" happened at Mercer University. There was a Prayer Group of young theologues. They had made a pact of "mutual support." That meant when they got out they would all aspire to the largest pulpits and denominational positions they could reach. They would recommend one another to Boards and Churches where power was great! In other words, it was far more than just prayer involved in the group.

    My father had come from a small rural church and his religion was one of God-direction. He had felt his call plowing the mule in a field and he knelt to pray, "God, I don't know what is you plan, but whatever it is, I will follow." To plot and plan over human aspirations and political ploys was not part of his "calling." He told me that, upon more mature reflection, he discovered he made a mistake over the "quick path to success." His classmates had become pastors of large GA Baptist churches. One had even become the Executive Secretary of the GA Baptist Convention. His more mature mind said, "You could have had a quicker rise, if your had not tried to be so 'spiritual' in your outlook."

    He has chosen graduate work at Andover-Newton Seminary in Boston. He chose because it was "the best education available at the time." That school was not Southern Baptist (Southern Seminary at Louisville, KY, which came out of Furman University in SC). He learned, to his dismay, that the well-known references on other resumes when he was being considered for a large church would say, "Can you trust a man from a non-SBC school?" They would get the big church and he had to teach school before showing people in SC that he was as good a Southern Baptist as they wanted. He was not a "liberal" from an up-North school! The Flame word was around in the 1930's as it is today! My dad believed the Bible was trustworthy despite any professor's contention otherwise with modern "Form Criticism / Text Criticism." His experience with God led him to KNOW you could trust the Bible and preach its truths as well as live them in the church you were called to serve.

    He advised me to attend a Southern Baptist Seminary of my choosing because the connections made would help more than hurt my professional future. He also advised me to request mature ministers of the Atlanta area to be on my Ordination Committee. They could be of help in the future on my reference list. It was not a matter of "political scheming" but a matter of "wise connections." I followed that guidance --- and it was wise! He had learned "how things work in the real world."

    I close this with my experience with the "New and far more Conservative Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary" now in the place of my graduate school of 1967-70 at Wake Forest, NC.

    They now have a Church Historian named Dr. Nathan Finn in place. He is a Conservative --- as are all the professors now. He did some history re-writing, called "redaction history" a few years ago in the Alumni Magazine. His article depicted the history of Southeastern and it's changes as a "good Conservative Resurgence of a liberal school." I wrote in the comment section that my experience at SEBTS in my tenure was far from "liberal." It was educational and mind-expanding, but it was not a "destruction of good faith" he implied with the use of "liberal" in his treatise. I have fellow students refusing to admit there were other ways of looking at "things theological" than what they brought with them to graduate study. They freely used the pejorative "liberal" in their view. It is another way of saying, "I did not want my prejudices and preconceptions challenged."

    It is one thing to simply "tell the truth." It is quite another to change history to say "we were right." Of course, Dr. Finn defended his position to the Nth degree. I presented several factual things to show I was truth-telling. He never would change and admit to his "redaction of history." Whoever writes the history can become the "winner" if no one challenges it with facts. In other words, fact can be in the mind of the teller!

    The Bible, for me, proves its own validity BECAUSE is tells both the good and bad of biblical characters from its history. The folks who told about David, for example, described him as a "man with faults being used of God to lead a people to greatness and power." Other histories of the time, like the Egyptians, have failed to mention that bunch of slaves who left from Egypt and the flood which kept them from pursuing them toward their Promised Land. There is much historical debate over even the existence of them in their version of history of Egypt. It is the same as Germans who deny the Holocaust today. Some actually "believe it did not happen." Jews know it happened and refuse to dismiss it as "fantasy." I choose to believe "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" version of that history of horror. Ultimately, wise people decide what it real and what is fantasy.

    One simply has to make up his own mind as to who it telling "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." We are like Jurors hearing a criminal case. The Defense Lawyer tries to insert enough doubt to hang the Jury or get his client off over "bad police work." The O.J. Simpson trial is a prime example of letting someone walk when much evidence shows who slit the throats of two people in a night of bloody revenge. "If it does not fit, you must acquit" has become a famous redaction limerick.

    I am just glad I wasn't a member of that Jury. It does not convince me at all!!!!!