Shaking the Foundations of Organized Religion

A recent video featuring the scholar N.T. Wright caused me to reconsider the religious and philosophical implications of the Great Lisbon Earthquake. In 1755, a catastrophic earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal. Interestingly enough, it occurred on November 1st, the religious holiday of All Saints Day. While most of the city met in the large catholic cathedrals to celebrate this day, the first quake began. An eyewitness relates the fact that a distant, hollow sound of thunder, which was very frightening, was heard first. His own house swung side to side "with a motion like that of a wagon driven violently over wrought stones." The second quake proved to be much more violent and powerful. As the frightened church-goers fled through the cathedral doors, they were met with a similarly catastrophic tsunami, resulting from the seismic unrest. In the first few minutes of the earthquake, 30,000 people lost their lives. If that wasn't enough, the earthquake and the tsunami were followed by the Great Lisbon Fire. In a few hours, Lisbon was transformed into a raging inferno. Hospitals were burnt to the ground with their patients inside. Many were left with no choice but to escape to the mountains. In all, it is estimated that 90,000 lost their lives.

Throughout history there are events like this that vividly portray the emerging ideas of the time. In the same way that a cultural metaphor effectively describes a culture by focusing on one aspect of that culture, the Lisbon earthquake provides us with a philosophical metaphor for the rise of the Enlightenment. For some time, organized religion had been on the witness stand. Higher criticism had already began it's cross-examination, naturalism and proto-Darwinism were not far behind. Then the earthquake struck. Lisbon was certainly a devout Catholic city. Much of its population participated in the events of All Saints Day. Yet, even amid the prayers of these saints, God could not save them. This idea certainly could be found in the German and French philosophers of the day, but this event in Portugal displayed a tangible illustration of the onset of modern thought. The famous humanist quote comes to mind, "No deity will save us, we must save ourselves."

Why "Heilsgeschichte"?

A number of things go into the creation of a good blog. Content, of course, has to be relevant and interesting. Specificity in interests should be highlighted. (Often those who just blog about whatever is on their mind at the moment lose any distinctiveness and the blog consequently turns into a daily update on their life). Hopefully, writing style should be somewhat intact or at least evolving. Amid all of this, there is one component that should tie it all together - the blog's title. Title is key for a number of reasons. First of all, the title describes the content. When one stumbles across your website, what will make them want to pause and read for a few moments? Second, the title provides the impetus for writing and helps the author remain specific to one subject or a few strains of thought. Third, the title should also allow for some creative freedom in the content of the blog. Although specificity is desired, redundance will quickly grow stale. For all these reasons and more, I decided to start my blog with the title Heilsgeschichte.

I must admit, I am committing a bit of intellectual thievery by using this title, but those who inspired this term will be given credit in due course. And so, why did I choose this title?

1. Heilsgeschichte is a combination of two German words. The phrase translates, "holy history." The term most often is related to the sciences of higher criticism that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The branch of higher criticism called historical criticism (and related also to source criticism) attempted to research ancient Biblical texts and rediscover who wrote the books of the Bible and what sources they used for their historical information. Another issue of historical criticism was the "quest for the historical Jesus." What does history really say about him? All that to say, Historical Criticism, as a science, will not be the predominant theme of this blog.

Instead, we will use the denotative meaning of Heilsgeschichte. This blog will undertake the study of holy history - the history of the Christian church - through reflection on the extant documents of Christendom. Of particular interest to me are the documents of the early church (from the apologists to Augustine), and the developments of theology in the continent in the early modern and modern worlds. These topics will be predominant as the interests and subsequent content of this blog.


2. As I said in the introduction, a blog should also have the freedom to branch out every once in a while from the particular subject at hand. Growing up, Heilsgeschichte had another connotative meaning besides the one previously mentioned. My Dad, historian that he was, would often loudly yell "Heilsgeschichte!" in the same way that many would use the term balderdash. Well in tune with his ethnic roots (he liked sauerkraut too), my Dad would often use this term as an exclamatory phrase (or explitive, if you like). Looking back, I think my Dad used this as kind of a private joke with himself, often chuckling to himself about his own intellectual wit (which he certainly had a lot of!). Following his legacy, my brothers and I continue the use of the term in this way.

This connotative meaning of Heilsgeschichte will show up in this blog when I want to rant on something that has disturbed, offended, or excited me, even if it has nothing to do with "holy history" as it has been previously defined.


To summarize, Heilsgeschichte provides the subject-content of this blog, and the necessary "freedom of expression" that will occasionally appear on this blog as well.