Faith and History

How do you spell "pbpshew" (as in, "Pbpshew!  It's been over ten years since I started this blog and added anything to it!")?  Well, at least to my credit I can say I have been writing other things, but perhaps should have been spending more time here.  I hope to entertain as well as inform, as I think this is one of the few forums most appropriate for discussing current events, the winds of change, zeitgeist, belief systems and their attendant claims, and the like.

Today CNN.com ran an article based on this statement: "Throughout history, people’s faith and their attachments to religious institutions have transformed."  The author uses the word "transformed" not in the sense of faiths having transformed their adherents, but in the sense that many faiths have changed over time and gained or lost traction in general.  The author opts to use the word "evolve" for this kind of change, though it should not be used outside of biological references to imply similar change in ideas or institutions.

One of the "givens" of the article, if its take on things is pursued, is that faith and religious institutions are not expected to have real connection to literal human history.  History, instead, eventually passes them by or they change with the ebb and flow of mass tastes and become something qualitatively different than the were at the beginning.  Christianity is erroneously claimed to have morphed from its early identity because its "ancient documents" supposedly contain a significant amount of material that was later omitted (another supposed example of religious 'evolution').  The Gnostic gospels are the source of this supposed contrast, works that (though ancient) are greatly later than the acknowledged gospels and rightly dismissed as legendary.  It would be the equivalent of a document claiming to shed light on Jesus's personal life by describing his pet blue ox and describing his famous height and strapping physique.  We have reliable versions of eyewitness gospels to the contrary.

It is perhaps ironic, then, that Christianity is so solidly based in specific historical facts and personalities. It wasn't even possible to verify until the 1950's that the only other person mentioned in Christianity's oldest creeds, the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, was who the gospels say he was.  Other Roman and Jewish historical writing also record aspects of his life, miracles, and resurrection.  That they contain anything on that last one should grab the reader.  Christianity is not changed by history, it is rooted in it and flourishes throughout.