On Hagiography

Carl Trueman has been researching the life of Athanasius and hence has been writing about the problem of hagiography ("the uncritical and adulatory description of the life of a hero of the faith"). If you want to see the problem illustrated, look no further than Gregory of Nazianzus's description of Athanasius in Oration 21:

In praising Athanasius I shall be praising virtue. To speak of him and to praise virtue are identical, because he had, or, to speak more truly, had embraced virtue in its entirety.

At least we know Gregory's perspective at the outset! But as Trueman says, "Hagiography may inspire but too often it tells us less about what actually happened and more about the personal tastes of the author."

In his post Trueman raises questions about the hagiography's (1)  historical inaccuracy, (2) tendency to see the world in rather black and white, Manichean terms; and (3) unintended serious and negative pastoral consequences.

Matt Perman passed along the following example. William Carey's friend and early biographer John Marshman had this to say about William's attitude toward his wife Dorothy and her struggle with mental illness:

The extreme consideration and tenderness which invariably marked his conduct towards her, place the meekness and magnanimity of his character in the strongest light. No word of complaint escaped him.

Even if you know nothing about Carey, this quote should raise some suspicions. One would think that deleting the word "invariably" would be wise, and perhaps saying that the author himself never heard a word of complaint—rather than the blanket statement that "no word" ever escaped him.

And indeed Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi provide some counter-details in The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture:

But Carey did complain. In his journal he writes, at the beginning of Dorothy's emotional retreat from reality, "I don't love to be always complaining. Yet I always complain." So to suggest that Dorothy's problems never bothered Carey, that he never uttered a word of complaint, or that he never lost patience with her is to place him in an untenable position. He was human as she. We can . . . honor and remember him well without having to make ourselves believe he was perfect in all that he ever said. (p. 51)

The fear of hagiography, however, can take us to another extreme where all admiration, affection, and appreciation are obscured. A desire for historical fidelity should not preclude celebrating God's grace in a person's life.

Furthermore, careful critical thinking does not necessarily require cynicism. Yes, we are all sinners. But we also believe in a God who does supernatural work in the lives of sanctified sinners. The quest for historical faithfulness should also not preclude exercising such virtues as prudence and tactfulness where necessary.

I like what Timothy Dudley-Smith says in the first of his two volumes of biography on John Stott: The Making of a Leader: A Biography of the Early Years (IVP, 1999):

I would not have agreed to write this book solely out of a desire to record events for posterity. Because I owe much to Christian biography in my own discipleship, and because my calling is to be a minister of the gospel, I cannot escape the hope that this book may be of use within the purposes of God to inspire a reader here or there with the 'good example' it portrays. With that hope (indeed, it has been more than a hope; it is a prayer) I would have used my time differently. But in saying this I utterly disclaim any suggestion that I have distorted the record for the purpose of edification. I believe the story will edify (that is, build up the reader in the faith) only insofar as it present a faithful record of events, and of John Stott's place within them. At my insistence he has read the MS of each chapter and helped me to correct errors of faith. But it has been clear between us from the beginning, and proved in practice in many instances, that the final judgment is always mine.

With Dudley-Smith, I believe Christian biography can be appreciative, historically faithful, and edifying—all at the same time. Though such is easier said than done.