released 2/25/2022
In several of his books, historian Mark Noll has pointed out that the approach in reading the Bible common in American Protestantism — an approach that relied on simplistic proof-texts — has repeatedly crippled attempts to deal with complex social and political problems. This theme was present in his 2015 book, In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783, and will no doubt also be present in the forthcoming volume, America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911. On this Feature, Noll summarizes how 19-century arguments about the Bible and slavery often suffered from the presupposition that proof-texting was the only faithful way to read the Bible.
41 minutes
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More to hear . . .
In the 2008 book The Future of Christian Learning, historian Mark Noll argued that a vision of Christianity that understands salvation in extremely private and individualistic terms will not sustain serious and committed Christian learning. The comprehensive and universal social and cultural consequences of the Gospel have to be assumed if Christian intellectual life is to be pursued vigorously. He talked with Ken Myers about that argument on Volume 97 of the Journal, a conversation revisited in today’s Feature.
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Related reading and listening
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 162 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Noll, R. Jared Staudt, Paul Weston, William C. Hackett, Hans Boersma, and David Paul Baird
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- Noll, Mark — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Mark Noll is Emeritus Professor of History, University of Notre Dame and Wheaton College. A prolific author, Noll’s publications cover a wide range of topics of interest to evangelicalism.
- Christian scholars and the secularized academy — Mark Noll on why Christian intellectual vitality requires a vision for the universality of Christian truth
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- Sources of Ancient Wisdom — Excerpts from two books about pre-modern Christian understanding: Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, by Christopher A. Hall, and Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, by D. H. Williams. (95 minutes)
