More Than Dates and Dead People: Recovering a Christian View of History
Stephen Mansfield
Most students hate history classes only slightly less than they hate school lunches. This seems odd when one considers that people today seem to be more interested in history than ever. People travel to historical sites during family vacations, and bestseller lists are filled with books on history and historical fiction. Furthermore, some of the most popular movies of recent years have been about history: Titanic, Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Amistad. Television specials like PBS's The Civil War, HBO's From the Earth to the Moon, and Alex Haley's Roots command record audiences.
More Than Dates and Dead People is an upbeat, edgy look at history as something exciting rather than a boring list of dates to memorize. It views history as something fun to study because it is about people: how they live, what they believe, what they do, wicked villains and heroes, grandeur and betrayal, leaders who lead and those who didn't, movements that never had a chance of succeeding, ideas that uplift and others that enslave.
According to Stephen Mansfield, the difference is in the world-view of the beholder. Materialism, which essentially is the philosophy behind how history is viewed today in many educational settings, believes that the future is blank and that man is pushed forward by the past. To this way of thinking, the past determines the present — which is experienced as a meaningless collection of arbitrary and unrelated events — and the future is a dark and mysterious blank. Theism, on the other hand, believes that God first decided what the end — the destiny of history — would be. Thus, having decided the future first, beginning with creation, He began to draw mankind through the ages to a final destiny. It is God's future that gives history its driving force and its meaning.
The difference between these two worldviews is everything, and in More Than Dates and Dead People the author works out what this means and why in a biblical worldview. History is no more the study of blind men groping toward a dark and fearful future. Instead, it becomes the unfolding of a future that God decided before creation, providing hope for all and making history a wild ride that never gets out of God's control.
 | STEPHEN MANSFIELD is the author of several books on history and leadership, including The Faith of George W. Bush, Then Darkness Fled: The Liberating Wisdom of Booker T. Washington, and More Than Dates and Dead People. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. |
$8.95, Paperback
ISBN-10: 1-58182-118-2 (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-58182-118-5 (Paperback)
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