American History and the Historian’s Task with Wilfred McClay

Life and Books and Everything

Clearly Reformed

Books, Religion & Spirituality, Arts, Christianity

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please note: Unfortunately the audio on this episode cuts in and out from time to time.

Kevin is joined by the distinguished historian, Dr. Wilfred McClay as the two of them talk about the task of the historian in being a “recording angel” of the past. After discussing McClay’s perceptive article “The Surprising Persistence of Guilt” (2017), they turn to McClay’s recent book on American History, A Land of Hope (Encounter, 2019). McClay talks about his conversion to Christianity early in his academic career and how that has shaped his work as a historian in mingling celebration and criticism. Finally, McClay asks for prayer as he serves on America’s official 250th anniversary committee making preparations for 2026.

Timestamps:

Introduction and Sponsor [0:00-2:33]

Personal Histories [2:34-9:09]

The Strange Persistence of Guilt [9:10-15:14]

Land of Hope [15:15-21:27]

Generosity toward the Past [21:28-31:33]

Celebration and Criticism [31:34-43:00]

250th Birthday of the USA [43:01-51:28]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Greetings and salutations, welcome to life and books and everything.
0:13.9	I'm your host, Kevin DeYoung, and I'm going to introduce our guest in just a moment,
0:19.6	but I want to welcome you to all of our listeners.
0:23.0	Glad to have you with us.
0:24.0	And as always, thank our sponsor, Crossway.
0:27.2	And today I want to mention new book by Dustin Binge, The Loveliest Place, the Beauty and Glory of the Church.
0:35.6	That seems like a timely book to reflect upon the glory and the beauty of
0:39.6	the church. Obviously, the church always has imperfections, but to reflect on the loveliest place.
0:46.2	So this is a new book just coming out this week from Crossway by Dustin Benj, B-E-N-G-E. You've probably seen the name before, the
0:56.2	loveliest place. So thank you to Crossway. And our guest, I'm really, really excited about,
1:02.7	I've read a number of his things, and in particular the book that we're going to talk about
1:06.0	in just a moment. Dr. Wilfred McLeigh. We'll go with Bill, since he's a humble scholar.
1:16.6	And we're going to talk about his book, Land of Hope, an invitation to the Great American Story.
1:22.2	There's too much bio here to really do Dr. McLean justice, but he is currently the Victor Davis-Hanson
1:27.9	Chair in classical history and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College. If you never heard of
1:33.1	Hillsdale, you should look it up there in southeastern Michigan, wonderful Christian liberal
1:40.1	arts school for many years before that. He taught at Oklahoma. He serves on all sorts of
1:47.4	boards of directors, Ethics and Public Policy Center, senior fellow at the Trinity Forum. He's written
1:52.4	lots of books and received numerous awards, lots of articles as well and first things in other places.
2:03.5	His book, The Masterless, self and society in modern america 1994 was winner the 1995 award and intellectual history from the organization
2:10.2	of american historian so he's a very well-respected accomplished historian and very grateful
2:16.1	bill to have you on so So welcome to the program.
	...

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