79 At the same time, we at Cedarville recognize some potential problems with the providential approach to history. The most disconcerting issue revolves around the realization that while Scripture reveals what God was doing in a particular historical event, those words were inspired by God. They are reliable because God breathed them through the writers of biblical books. When we ascribe to God actions that we see in historical events subsequent to the biblical revelation, we are presuming upon Him. We simply do not have divine inspiration to speak for Him and quite frankly, Scripture is clear that we are on very dangerous ground if we attempt to do so. If we presume that we know what God is doing in various historical events and write about it, we may be ascribing actions to God that are not appropriate. Another problem associated with this type of historical writing is that it tends to uphold individuals as perfect Christian models. We always need to be careful of doing this as all humans are fallen and their flaws will be seen. If we seek to uplift someone as a positive Christian model, another historian may find some flaw or inconsistency in that person that may harm the Christian witness. Finally, while we may have sympathy with attempts at painting our nation’s founders as Christians, we recognize that the evidence suggests that they cannot be portrayed uniformly. Perhaps what matters more anyway, is what influence biblical thought had on the founding of the nation. Regardless, we should recognize that we do not need to twist the historical truth to make God look good. Think about the Scriptures. They are replete with the good, the bad, and the ugly. God is glorified even in human frailty. He does not need our bolstering, and His kingdom is not furthered if we are not fastidious about the truth. While these criticisms may sound like we at Cedarville default to the Marsden and Noll approach to history, that would not be accurate. As noted earlier, Marsden, in his book titledThe Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, argues that Christians need to produce acceptable work and seek a seat at the table in academia. In the field of history, they can do this by eschewing the providential approach, distancing themselves from anti-intellectualism like Creationism, and arguing that the academy ought to be open to all views. Marsden asserted that the university was once a place where all views were welcome in the discourse of ideas. If universities are willing to have Marxists, feminists, progressives, and a host of others at the table of interpretive dialogue, then there ought to be room for Christians. While this approach seems reasonable, look at what is implicitly accepted. Murray Murphey contended that Marsden is conceding that Christianity is just one among many equals in his
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