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Tradition and History1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2011

Richard P. Heitzenrater
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Extract

The relationship between history and tradition has long been convoluted, just as any consensus on the definition of either term is difficult to achieve. The tongue-in-cheek comment by Jean Cocteau that “history is facts which become lies in the end; legends are lies which become history in the end” is only one of many quotable quips that glance lightly off the interstices of these two universes of discourse. Such humor, nevertheless, is not that far removed from the canons of serious discussion. The realities that these two terms represent, as well as their nature, their goals, and their points of contact, provide the framework for our reflections herein.

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Type
Perspectives
Information
Church History , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , September 2002, pp. 621 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2002

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References

2. Jean Cocteau, The Observer, 27 Sept. 1959.

3. See Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–2Google Scholar.

4. During the last half century, the discussion among Christian theologians was propelled by such writings as the report of the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches, Tradition and Traditions (Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub. House, 1961)Google Scholar, and Congar, Yves, La Tradition et les traditions; Essai historique (Paris: Lib. Fayard, 1968)Google Scholar. More recently, the discussion has been shaped by historians such as Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, whose ideas in The Invention of Tradition were the focus of a conference in Soesterberg, Holland (Jan. 1999); see Religious Identity and the Invention of Tradition, ed. Willem van Henten, Jan and Houtepen, Anton (Assen, The Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001)Google Scholar.

5. Burke, Peter, “Ranke the Reactionary,” in Iggers, Georg G. and Powell, James M., Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline (Syracuse: Syracuse Press, 1990), 36–37Google Scholar.

6. Quoted in Carr, Edward Hallett, What is History? (New York: Vintage, 1961), 8Google Scholar.

7. Georg Iggers, “Crisis of the Rankian Paradigm,” in Iggers and Powell, 179; see also Novick, Peter, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 26–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Mirror and Memory: Reflections on Early Methodism (Nashville: Kingswood, 1989)Google Scholar.

9. Wesley, John, A Short History of Methodism, in The Works of John Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989)Google Scholar, 9:367–68; hereinafter cited as Works. See also Sermon 112, “On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel” (1777), §4: “For there is no other person, if I decline the task, who can supply my place, who has a perfect knowledge of the work in question from the beginning of it to this day” (Works, 3:580).

10. Wesley, “A Short History of the People called Methodists” (1781), §1, in A Concise Ecclesiastical History (1781), 4:169; see Works, 9:426. Cf. his comment in the preface to vol. 5 of his Sermons on Several Occasions (1788), where he explains why he has produced this collection of his sermons from the Artninian Magazine: “I had been frequently solicited to do this myself, and had as often answered, ‘I leave this for my executors.’ But if it must be done before I go hence, methinks I am the properest person to do it.” Works, 2:355

11. He is by no means alone in using this methodology; see, e.g., Arch's, Stephen Carl study, Authorizing the Past (DeKalb, III.: Northern Illinois Press, 1994)Google Scholar, for an examination of New England Puritan uses of history.

12. Schmidt, Martin, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 2 vols. (London: Epworth, 1962–1973)Google Scholar.

13. Butterfield, Herbert, “The Dangers of History,” in In Search of a Meaningful Past, ed. Gilbert, Arthur N. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), 115Google Scholar.

14. This was Rebecca Miles's phrasing.

15. “Making History Whole Again,” New York Times (Sunday, 6 Oct. 1985), sect. 7, p. 1.

16. The article was written by the Rev. Thomas Griffith of the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church and circulated electronically.

17. The covering e-mail message, forwarded to me on 1 Mar. 1999, was written by the Rev. Jerry Eckert, retired clergy member of the Wisconsin Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

18. I do not subscribe to Hobsbawm's definitional assertion that “the object and characteristic of ‘traditions,’ including invented ones, is invariance.” Hobsbawm and Ranger, 2; cf. van Henten and Houtepen, 4.

19. Among other things, Websters imagined the Pilgrims setting foot on that Rock to begin planting a new society that would be built upon the principles of “the fullest liberty and the purest religion.” Seelye, John, Memory's Nation; The Place of Plymouth Rock (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 76Google Scholar.

20. The Coronation of Charlemagne, tr. Anderson, J. E. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), xiGoogle Scholar.

21. Breunig, Charles, The Age of Revolution and Reaction, 1789–1850 (New York: Norton, 1970), 80–81Google Scholar.

22. Luther zwischen Reform und Reformation: der Thesenanschlag fand nicht statt (Munster: Aschendorff, 1966)Google Scholar; English trans, by Jared Wicks (London: G. Chapman, 1968).

23. Ibid., 76–97.

24. Hans J. Hillerbrand, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

25. Ibid., 2:462.

26. Ibid., 1:487.

27. Ibid., 2:315. By reading this “posting” as “nailing,” this statement agrees with the traditional story.

28. So Bernd Moeller is able to go on, after suggesting that the academic disputation at Wittenberg might never have taken place, to say that it is well known, nevertheless, that the Ninety-five Theses had an enormous impact at the time, doubtless the more important and verifiable historical point. Ibid., 1:487.