“[W]e have entered what I call the ‘Ahistoric Age’ in the Western world. We have largely ceased to think of ourselves as historical beings. Western societies have almost completely lost the ability to engage meaningfully with the past. In the past decade or so, we have come to know less than ever about history, and both individually and collectively we are losing the ability to grapple with history’s ethical complexities without descending into culture wars.”
So writes Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, a Christian academic historian, in the introduction to her 2024 book, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age.
Irving-Stonebraker is especially concerned with the risk this cultural mindset could have on Christians in the West. She continues:
“I am concerned that in the attempt to appear ‘relevant,’ the church has largely acculturated itself to the ahistoric worldview by jettisoning the historic ideas and practices of Christian formation. This is creating unintended and concerning consequences, leaving us unmoored from our history and struggling to live distinctive Christian lives.”
How to address this challenge? Drawing upon the biblical teaching that Christians are a royal priesthood (1Peter 2:9), Irving-Stonebraker argues that we’re to be priests of history, engaged in the priestly role of tending and keeping the past. Her book explores what history is, why history matters, and how engaging with history is essential for our spiritual formation and discipleship.
Part I: How we lost our connection to history
In the first section of her book, Irving-Stonebraker outlines how we as Westerners gradually lost our connection with our own past. Until a few centuries ago, she explains, individuals and communities saw themselves as part of God’s larger unfolding story. Their lives were chapters in that story, which had an end goal and a purpose: the return of Christ and the consummation of all things.
A variety of social, political, economic, and philosophical changes gave rise to secularism, and the rejection of the transcendent, the sacred, and the eternal, along with any sense of ultimate meaning or purpose. The only thing that exists in the secular worldview is the immanent, material world. Our place in history, where we came from and where we’re going, is considered irrelevant.
This shift in our Western society has created the “Ahistoric Age,” a term coined by Irving-Stonebraker. She describes this Ahistoric Age at length, as having five major characteristics:
- We believe that the past is merely a source of shame and oppression from which we must free ourselves.
- We no longer think of ourselves as part of historical communities.
- We are increasingly ignorant of history.
- We do not believe history has a narrative or a purpose.
- We are unable to reason well and disagree peaceably about the ethical complexities of the past – that is, the coexistence of good and evil in the same historical figure or episode.
Having discussed the origins and nature of the Ahistoric Age in our society, Irving-Stonebraker moves on to its presence in the church. She does not claim ahistoricism is found everywhere in the church, but there is always a risk that we as believers take on the cultural mindset of the day – sometimes without realizing it. In this instance, she identifies five predominant outworkings of ahistoric attitudes that can be found within some faith communities:
- Doctrinal drift from orthodoxy
- Individualism and comfort
- Entertainment and celebrity culture
- A consumerist and marketing model
- Corporate and depersonalised ministry models
When ahistoricism is present, it displays three general characteristics: an ignorance about the past, a feeling that the past is irrelevant, and an ideological attitude that views the past as something to be judged and rejected.
Part II: Why we need history
Having laid the groundwork of defining the Ahistoric Age and describing its effects on society and the church, Irving-Stonebraker turns her attention to a pair of crucial questions: What is history, and why does it matter? The short answer to the first question, according to the author, is as follows:
“In its broadest sense, history is humanity’s attempt to make sense of the past and of time itself. In doing so, history seeks to give us a way of approaching the future. History lies at the heart of who human beings think they are, where they have come from, and where (if anywhere) they think they are going.”
Irving-Stonebraker’s field of expertise is intellectual history, also known as the history of ideas. Citing numerous examples past and present, she demonstrates how the idea that history is linear and has a purpose came from Christianity but has been co-opted by various non-Christian ideologies. For Christians, it is vital to reclaim this ground and champion the truth that history is a story of hope thanks to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
To answer the question of why history matters, Irving-Stonebraker begins with the foundational biblical truth that God is the author of history. His grand narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration plays out through real history. Consequently, God’s Word instructs his people to pass down the record of his activities to future generations, and to learn from it. In addition, the study of history is part of the creation mandate God gave humanity, to cultivate civilization as his image bearers on earth.
For Christians living in our Ahistoric Age, the author unpacks several reasons why historical literacy is especially important:
- Historical literacy is vital to engaging with culture.
- Historical literacy can help us in evangelism.
- Historical literacy can help us move beyond culture wars.
- Tending and keeping history helps us live as disciples.
Given the importance of history, how then should we as believers engage with the past? Irving-Stonebraker cites the Old Testament role of priests to tend and keep the place where God met with his people, combined with the New Testament teaching that Christians are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”
(1 Peter 2:9).
“Drawing upon . . . the priesthood of all believers, I want to suggest that Christians are called to tend and keep time, including the past,” the author argues. “In short, we are to be a witness to the past, cultivate it, and keep uncovering the stories and ideas that comprise the history of the world. This is a beautiful commission as well as a profound responsibility.”
She further explains, “The priestly framework of tending and keeping history can help us resist the prevailing attitudes of irrelevance, ignorance, and ideology which characterise the Ahistoric Age’s approach to the past.”
The author unpacks several ways that stewarding the past can benefit us as believers:
- History can anchor us in orthodox, biblical theology.
- History can help us redeem our time.
- History can help us draw upon sacredness and beauty.
- History can help us with our intellectual formation and education.
- History can help us with our spiritual formation.
Irving-Stonebraker stresses that cultivating the past isn’t just a job for professional historians. It’s a calling for Christians in all walks of life. As priests of history, all believers can participate in two vital tasks: tending the past by recovering stories that have been overlooked; and keeping the past by preserving and communicating our rich Christian intellectual heritage with an attitude of humility and an eagerness to learn from it.
Part III: How history can help us
Irving-Stonebraker devotes the final section of her book to exploring a variety of historical figures, ideas, and practices to demonstrate how tending and keeping the past can help us in fours areas, which she outlined in the previous section.
Stewarding our time
Christians in the past inhabited time differently than we do. They saw themselves as a historical people, with a rich heritage of worship and practices handed down from earlier believers. We in the modern West rarely think of time this way; we tend to live in the moment, where we’re always far too busy. By engaging with our heritage, we can rediscover patterns of prayer and worship that will help us keep in step with daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms and seasons of life as God’s people.
Recovering sacredness and beauty
Because we’re made in God’s image, we possess unique abilities to look beyond ourselves with awe and wonder at the transcendent and the sacred, and to create and appreciate beauty. Ahistoricism, with its naturalistic assumptions, has leached away much of our sense of transcendence, sacredness, and beauty, especially in how we envision and approach God. Through the stories of prominent Christian artists from the past, who created their works for the glory of God, Irving-Stonebraker demonstrates the vital role of sacredness and beauty in discipleship, worship, and evangelism.
History and intellectual formation
Ahistoricism has replaced our rootedness in the past with a fixation on creating our own identity. Historical figures and ideas, if considered at all, are viewed through a reductionist lens of power and oppression. In contrast, Christian thinkers of the past engaged broadly with the history of ideas, both Christian and non-Christian, to sharpen and challenge their own thinking. By doing likewise, we might better develop our critical skills, broaden our perspectives, and grow our empathy and respect for others whose ideas differ from ours.
History and spiritual formation
For many modern Western Christians, the discipline of spiritual formation has been reduced to a few minutes of prayer and Bible reading shoehorned into our busy schedules. Citing examples from church history, Irving-Stonebraker shows how earlier Christians built their schedules around their spiritual disciplines, such as night vigils, meditation, and reading aloud at mealtime. Tending and keeping the practices of our spiritual forebears might be the key to forming a more robust spiritual life of our own.
Conclusion: History and the renewal of the church
Through her concept of the Ahistoric Age, Sarah Irving-Stonebraker has diagnosed one of the chief underlying ailments afflicting modern Western society and the modern Western church. Like a true physician of ideas, she has addressed the problem with the wisdom, nuance, and compassion that is often lacking in the online debates and culture wars surrounding the same topic. Beyond a diagnosis, her unique challenge to her fellow believers to be priests of history offers us a positive vision for a way forward.
“If Christians can be priests of history who tend and keep the past, we can inhabit our story as God’s people and renew the church,” Irving-Stonebraker concludes. “We can not only strengthen and revive our spiritual and intellectual formation, but we can also equip ourselves to communicate the truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ to a confused and rootless world.”
Sources and further reading
Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age, Zondervan, 2024.
