81 Without the seat, it is hard to be a light. Nonetheless, it does matter what we are willing to give up to gain that seat. God’s purposes are not furthered when His principles are compromised. They are not furthered when Christians focus their criticisms on other Christians who are sincerely seeking to honor God in their academic work. Just as Marsden has suggested academia should be open to Christian historians, Marsden and Noll should be open to Christian academics who come from differing theological positions. Those differences result in differing control beliefs and explain in part why there is no one Christian view of history. The acerbic critique of those, like myself, who hold to the inerrancy of Scripture by Marsden and Noll, does not uplift the body of Christ and the conflict tends to diminish the perspective that non-Christians have of the church. Perhaps Christian historians, and Christian academics in general, should demonstrate the love of Christ in their interaction with one another. Recognizing that the application of scriptural principle in a field like history will take on many different forms and variations, it is quite likely that Christians of many stripes would gain from listening to, engaging, and critiquing one another’s work in a godly fashion. That process of “iron sharpening iron” may result in truly integrative work of a quality that might gain the recognition of the broader academy. When the quest for a seat demands that we compromise, we need to be willing to allow distinctiveness to drive us, not the quest for respectability. At the end of our lives, what will we have gained if we have the respect of the field of history, but have not presented ourselves as distinctively Christian? That distinctiveness may cost us career advancement, but we should be willing to pay the price. It is a small one in comparison to that paid by the disciples of Christ in the New Testament. Perhaps Iain Murray sums it up best, Certainly the gospel can penetrate academia. It has done so in the past. But it has never done so by a quiet coalescence within systems with which it is basically incompatible. …The Christian faith is rather at its strongest when its antagonism to unbelief is most definite, when its spirit is otherworldly, and when its whole trust is not ‘in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’ (1 Cor. 2:5).17 Even in our distinctiveness, we need to be careful not to presume upon God’s plans or intentions in the unfolding of history. While He is 17 Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950–2000. Banner of Truth Trust, 2000, 212.
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