{"id":19750,"date":"2018-10-25T17:34:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T00:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=19750"},"modified":"2018-10-25T17:34:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T00:34:33","slug":"doing-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/doing-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Frankopan\u2019s The Silk Roads<\/em> is an old-world history book, told under modern contexts, about how East meets West and eventually became globalized. This post will attempt to connect Frankopan\u2019s historical treatise with my dissertation research. I will look for associations that will help strengthen my research question that uses Biblical solutions to help prepare, train, and equip Christian churches, leaders, and congregants to both understand and withstand spiritual warfare? I will examine my intersections with spiritual warfare history, Frankopan\u2019s historic examination of evil, and measure his work with outside reviews.<\/p>\n

First, I realized that I had personal experience that intersects with Frankopan\u2019s geographic focus for the origins of civilizations. I connected immediately to many of the historical locations where Frankopan says all the \u201cworld\u2019s great religions burst into life.\u201d[1]<\/a> He named \u201cJalalabad and Herat in Afghanistan, Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq or Homs and Aleppo in Syria\u201d as todays regions associated with\u00a0 \u201creligious fundamentalism and sectarian violence.\u201d[2]<\/a> As I considered my past 25 years of service abroad I said to myself, as if I was pointing at a world map, \u201cI\u2019ve been there, there, and there\u201d and realized that my aviation vocation has given me access both on the ground and in the air to all of these, and many more, historically and Biblically significant geographic locations. He called it a \u201ccauldron\u201d where Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism \u201cjostled with each other.\u201d[3]<\/a> I think the word jostled is bit too soft because in the regions I served, where East meets West, has boiled over in his cauldron and produced some of the most terrible acts of violence known to humankind.<\/p>\n

When I read Farnkopan\u2019s account of how the Taliban destroyed the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan I remembered my first flight into that location. The field is high altitude, the landing strip is short and crooked, and I had to maneuver around people leading donkey\u2019s carrying water across the touchdown zone on the runway. During the landing rollout I looked to the right and saw the massive caves in the side of a mountain, now empty, where 150+ feet tall statues had stood for 1500 years.[4]<\/a> Yes, I met history in person, and within the sometimes confusing context of war, culture, religion, and economics I still see God working His marvelous sovereign plan to redeem His creation. Is this a form of \u201clived religion\u201d like Bebbington describes in the history of evangelicalism?[5]<\/a> I think it is.<\/p>\n

When I said \u201cyes, send me\u201d I had no idea how far I would travel. Reflecting on other historians like Anderson\u2019s Imagined Communities<\/em>, I can see how diverse, different, and even warring people groups can come to \u201cregard themselves as belonging to the same community.\u201d[6]<\/a> Thankfully God uses \u201call things\u201d to advance and spread of the Gospel of Christ despite my human shortcomings and limited understanding.[7]<\/a> Nevertheless, I know God reins, and God knows who, what, where, when, why, and how to connect His creation together for our good and His glory.<\/p>\n

Second, I see links to evil forces in Frankopan\u2019s historical review that describes a global condition of desensitized humans who are numb to the pangs of evil in the world. From the Holy Land Crusades to the Iraq-Syrian War there is a recurring pattern of evil. Like a demonic recycling-center, which reconstitutes fragments and residues of evil, over and over, until the evil is repurposed into horrific acts against humanity. For example, the airliners crashing into the New York World Trade Center Twin-Towers on September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

These terrorist events, resulting in mass causalities, are seemingly unquestionable acts of evil. Yet, on the day-to-day routine where life just seemingly happens we often wonder why ministry and mission is so messy. What do we see as the cause? It is the pastor\u2019s fault, or the elder\u2019s, or the music director, or the new members, or the old members, or the refugees, or the seating, or the baptismal, or the; and the list goes on. Sadly, it is these seemingly normal areas of conflict, confusion, and crisis that impact our daily lives and destroy our witness as Christians. My research into spiritual warfare, supported with associations from Francopan\u2019s historical review, leads me to believe that many like-minded leaders and congregants are blinded, confused, and desensitized from understanding and withstanding the schemes of the devil.<\/p>\n

Resisting Satan is a Biblical mandate, eschatological brawl, and Christian\u2019s daily struggle. Even the Muslim prophet Muhammad, according to Francopan\u2019s review of the Quran, says that Satan\u2019s work is creating division among people.[8]<\/a> You don\u2019t have to be a Christian to experience the division, but you must be a Christian to activate God\u2019s power and lay claim to His promise that wearing Christ as the armor of God gives us the spiritual position to defend, overcome, and advance against evil forces in the world.<\/p>\n

Third, outside reviews on Francopan\u2019s Silk Road<\/em> describe his book as a \u201cmelting pot\u201d where civilizations, cultures, and religions have been mixed together under the fires of globalization.[9]<\/a> \u00a0Ure says that the book is \u201cnot so much a new history of the world as a new perspective on existing history.\u201d[10]<\/a> I agree with Ure\u2019s comment that the East-West routes, called silk-roads, not only trafficked silk, spices, and other goods but also helped move religious faiths.[11]<\/a> For example, Christianity moved with traders, travelers, and refugees from the Roman Empire to the Western world. I pray that my travels have helped transport the Gospel to some hard to reach places. I remember sharing the light and love of Christ to Afghan\u2019s as I hiked through mountain villages bordering a 5th<\/sup> Century wall in the mountains around Kabul that was used at one time to protect Christians.\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 When the U.S. President says \u201cbuild a wall\u201d I actually stood next to one that leaders with the same idea built 1500 years ago. The Kabul region, while predominantly Muslim now, is a historic area full of Christian artifacts and the Western missionary influences from the 1960\u2019s-70\u2019s before entering a half-century of wars, still going on! Kradin, a more negative reviewer, classifies the book as a \u201ccaptivating fiction for all lovers of history.\u201d[12]<\/a> He describes Francopan as a \u201cfox\u201d who knows many things but encourages readers, who want to know the laws of history, to read the classic history authors like McNeil, Wallerstein, Goldstone, Morris, and Turchin if they want to know the \u201cone big thing.\u201d[13]<\/a> Finally, Skinner\u2019s verdict on Silk Roads<\/em> commends it as a book that \u201cwill engage and inform readers\u201d about the \u201clong-festering\u201d conflicts, cultures, and religions.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n

In conclusion, this book connects me and my dissertation research with world history; where East meets West. I am confident that my Eastern travels, cross-cultural experiences, and personal reflections will add prayerful wisdom and discernment to my LGP experience. Like Dr. Clark says, we must engage the world and use all available forms of appropriate Christian associations and resources to share the Gospel.[15]<\/a> Finally, Silk Roads<\/em> is a good historical resource book that communicates the Asian perspective and Eastern bias on how the East influences the West.<\/p>\n

Stand firm,<\/p>\n

M. Webb<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Peter Frankopan. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World<\/em>. Kindle ed. (New York: Knopf, 2016) Kindle Location 191.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> Ibid., 212.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> Ibid., 191.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> Ibid., 61.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> David W. Bebbington. “The Evangelical Quadrilateral: A Response.” Fides Et Historia 47, no. 1 (2015): 91.<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>. Rev. ed. ed. (London: Verso, 2006) 10.<\/h6>\n
[7]<\/a> Rom. 8:28<\/h6>\n
[8]<\/a> Frankopan, Silk Roads<\/em>, 83.<\/h6>\n
[9]<\/a> Pam Kingsbury. “Peter Frankopan. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.” \u00a0Library Journal 141, no. 8 (2016): 40.<\/h6>\n
[10]<\/a> John Ure. “History: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.” Country Life, 2015, 118.<\/h6>\n
[11]<\/a> Ibid.<\/h6>\n
[12]<\/a> Nikolay Kradin. “A Review of Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.” Cliodynamics 7, no. 2 (2016): 289.<\/h6>\n
[13]<\/a> Ibid. Greek poet Archilochus cited for the fox and hedgehog parable.<\/h6>\n
[14]<\/a> Laurie U. Skinner. “Frankopan, Peter. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.” Library Journal 141, no. 1 (2016): 115.<\/h6>\n
[15]<\/a> Dr. Jason Clark, \u201cFace to Face, World Resources for Gospel presentation,\u201d Zoom Video Conference, October 22, 2018.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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