(Note: I usually try to write things that I think might benefit others, but this post is shaping up to be a little more personal, self-indulgent, and reflective. If that’s not interesting to you, don’t tell me, as I shall then have to pretend not to know you.)

I’ve been exploring some new trails lately and today I would like to try writing about them. This is in part to collect my thoughts, but also to combat the ever-present urge to wait until you have something better to say.

When trying to land on a specialization, venturing someplace new is a risky proposition. Everything is unfamiliar, which is exciting, but you can’t yet tell what is important and what isn’t. Of course, there are some things fresh eyes appreciate that old eyes have come to take for granted, but in academia, you have to wait there and be patient, take it all in and out and in again.

So I’ve chosen some new trails that run through my hometown. It’s a familiar place seen through new vantage points. Time will tell if it’s the place to settle down or another stop on the way.

I’ve been dabbling in history, you see. History! After majoring in English and theology and philosophy, minoring in film and meddling in music. History, where one Ford thing after another warns away good Baptists and where unplanned obsolescence is made to bow to the latest iPhone Galaxy.

I have always loved systematic theology, and for a time I believed (because I was so taught) the best theology was indistinguishable from philosophy. And while I do defend reason and believe in a good argument and find joy in programming and debugging, I have come to believe that to do that in the academy means contributing to secular scholarship. And I don’t at all enjoy trying to fashion arguments that do not follow from Christian premises or wading shoulder deep into analytic proofs. (Besides, my brother has already claimed the handle “Philosophy Vajda,” so I am too late. I must embrace another identity.)

While systematic theology is my passion, I find it hard to locate a scholarly grounding there. It seems to me that most of theology is either philosophy, history, sociology, or interpretation, but related to theological interests in some way or another. One of my mentors assures me that systematic theology is real and scholarly and essentially means citing the scholars in other disciplines. I am open to that idea, but for now I am unsure. I suspect that if I want to contribute scholarship that exists not just for my denomination or tribe and instead builds on the great city to which all scholars strive to contribute, I must embrace to some degree or another one of these feeder disciplines. If so, history is the obvious choice.

I won’t go into all the personal reasons why, but suffice it to say, history has always been a part of my life, always an interest; it is what I most often read for fun, it is an element in much of my favorite fiction, it is an essential framework for understanding the world. In fact, (this anecdote I will share), while on staff at Cornerstone, I took the StrengthsFinder survey and was appalled to find “Context” was my number one strength. It might as well have said my greatest strength was “walking without tripping” or “breathing with astonishing effortlessness.” Over time I came to see that “context” is so basic to me I was completely unaware of another way to view the world.

But enough of all that. History is a direction, not a destination. I have been poking around a corner of history that is new and old to me. Growing up I was immersed in 20th century history, and it still fascinates me. But over time I came to see that the seeds for the 20th century were planted in the 19th (that is, the 1800s, for you practical types). So I have been dabbling in that century for many years now, mostly in audiobooks and Great Courses, but occasionally in books, too. Marsden’s first edition of The Soul of the University and Noll’s Princeton Theologians, for example.

Right now, I am poking around the early parts. I am learning about the roots of liberalism and their connection with Romanticism, and here’s where things get really wild for me. Nearly to the degree that history is in my blood, Romanticism is, too. Only toward the end of my education at DTS did I become aware that it was its own theological movement, and that its fingerprints were all over my life. I knew Modernity as rationalism, and Postmodernity as a kind of post-rationalism. I had heard about German Higher Criticism and Darwinism and fundamentalism and so on. I knew my denominations. I knew my doctrines. But Romanticism was always talked about under other names, or perhaps only through nearby relations like Pietism, Scottish Common Sense, Idealism, and so on. This really landed on my radar as an area worth exploring after reading Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

So on the one hand, I am curious, and that is always a good sign. I also feel a burden to understand liberalism, postmodernism, and progressivism, and I have never been able to shake that burden. I’m not interesting in winning some apologetic debate; I wish to find the truth, not defeat an opponent. But if I can learn something from these traditions and perhaps bring to light things that could bring healing to the church, that would be an incredible priviledge.

But one last connection. Did I mention I majored in English? In every elective where I had the choice, I focused on 19th and 20th century literature. Until now, that education was preparation for the mind in general, but it has not proved all that useful in theological conversations. So studying the roots and effects of Romanticism puts me in a position to re-engage with my undergraduate work. This is thrilling to me for many reasons, not least of which is that I chose these studies because I enjoyed them and not because I planned to get anything professionally advantageous out of them. I have since been haunted by the need to choose the thing that will make my efforts “count” in some way, (see above), and that always casts a bit of doubt over whether there is anything deeper there to ground the labor. I look forward to exploring further whether there is something there in the natural growth that can feed the more structured enterprise.

Goodness. I sat down with the hopes of sharing what I had been reading about the Romantics, but it’s turned out to be all prelude instead. I promise to come back to it, though I know not when.