Recovering History with Matthew Stewart

If you grew up in the evangelical church you may know that there are particular ways of interpreting history in evangelical culture. That is, like any sub-culture, evangelicals tend to tell one another particular stories about the past. In most of those stories, Christians are cast as the good guys. If you want to grow in faith, in knowledge, it is advisable to consider history with a clear lens. While no lens can be perfectly clear, we can seek to be aware of our own biases.

When you learn that your own history is not as blameless as you may have been told there are some key possibilities in how to react. You can double-down, denying that your particular community or religion or denomination has anything to admit. You can console yourself by claiming that those who were part of the groups with which you identify were the best of a bad lot. You can also be honest about how some terrible things have been perpetrated in the name of your faith and even by people who were held up as heroes in history.

I was always taught that Christian revival was to be celebrated pretty much without question. In fact, in evangelical circles, revival was something to be longed for. It was a kind of “if only that could happen for us today”.

Our guest for this episode is a philosopher and an historian. Matthew Stewart’s An Emancipation of the Mind looks at the history of the abolition of slavery in the United States. In doing so, Stewart shows that the place of the church was almost entirely a place of support of slavery and loud argument for its continued presence.

In some of the most striking sections of the book, Stewart demonstrates how Christian revival in American history was almost entirely enmeshed with the assumption that slavery was blessed by God. That is, in many cases, as people converted to Christianity, they became even more supportive of the slave trade or even more violent “masters”.

This matters today because there are declarations of revival happening now.

Some Christians assume these revivals must be entirely good - a sign of God’s blessing. It is clear, however, that an honest look shows that there are cases in which revival, though lauded as spiritual and religious, is as much or more about politics and power.

We speak with Matthew Stewart about his book and about how the lessons of the past can help us to see our current world more clearly.

 

Resources referenced in this episode:

An Emancipation of the Mind: the War over Slavery, and the Refounding of America, Matthew Stewart, 2024

The 9.9 Percent: the New Aristocracy That is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture, Matthew Stewart, 2021

"The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy", Matthew Stewart, The Atlantic, June 2018 

Night of the Confessor: Christian Faith in an Age of Uncertainty, Tomáš Halík, 2012

“The Cities Church protest and Bonhoeffer’s ‘promising godlessness’”, Mac Loftin, Christian Century Magazine, January 28,2026