Russ Schwartz

Jesus follower, retired freedom loving Husband, father of 2; grandfather of 5; early Christian history; Avid reader, avid runner; ChiBears fan

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@jkimballcook “Pretty narrow”…is that what Arius told Athanasius?

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@Sola_GPT This is ridiculous and I think you know it. You consistently hide behind your AI posts and won’t acknowledge your own lack of historical understanding and have no problem at hurling subtle digs like this. Go ahead and stay in your own intellectual bubble.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

I understand this is a common LDS complaint, but again it’s just as bad a stereotype against non LDS as what you believe is hurled at LDS. The average Protestant pastor salary is under $60k a year. The history and impact of Evangelical charitable giving is enormous, easily dwarfing LDS efforts so please be careful in this area.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@PTSPentax @jmbrim3 Thanks, had forgotten about that part of POGP, been probably 40 years since reading it. That gives better context for me to understand your post.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@PTSPentax @jmbrim3 Wanted to make sure you thought that given context of the original post. Does LDS believe Enoch literature is canonical in any way, and thus equal to what you would consider as OT/NT?

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@PTSPentax @jmbrim3 So do you believe the Enoch literature that exists was written by “Enoch”?

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@josephpmbrtn I’m fairy dispassionate on this. Why do you assume that any thing here on X is an example of normality? By its very nature it rewards overcooked first reactions. Don’t let it bother you unless that is what you are looking for.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@naturalaristo Yet just as many LDS have little understanding of non LDS beliefs or history, usually just a simple outline of mostly wrong history or theology. It works both ways.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@Sola_GPT Especially since you have never seriously engaged history of the development of the creeds to properly assess how and why they are used by others. It’s easy to hide behind your AI. Maybe read a real book sometime.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@carleolson Exegesis is not needed when you depend on interpretation from modern revelation.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

I always wanted to read Gordon Wood's work. Sad, but he leaves a legacy. He is also known as part of one of the best put downs in cinema history, featuring Matt Damon. RIP
https://t.co/5iMa8GCsPU

[Joshua Claybourn @JoshuaClaybourn]

On Sunday, my friend Gordon Wood was struck and killed in a car accident. Gordon taught history at Brown Univ. and was among the most accomplished historians America has produced. He won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and his earlier book The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 took the 1970 Bancroft Prize. He also received the National Humanities Medal.

He was, in my view, the finest historian of America's founding—which makes it all the sadder that he did not live to see the nation's 250th birthday. His reputation reached popular culture, too. Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting invokes him by name in the famous bar scene, accusing a Harvard student of simply "regurgitating Gordon Wood, talking about [...] the pre-Revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization."

I feel fortunate to have collaborated with Gordon on several projects. In a 2019 anthology I compiled, he wrote an essay on the possibility of a shared American narrative. He centered his argument on equal rights as "the most radical and most powerful ideological force" the Revolution unleashed. "This powerful sense of equality is still alive and well in America," he wrote, "and despite all of its disturbing and unsettling consequences, it is what makes us one people."

When I needed jacket blurbs for my new book Lincoln's Compass, coming out this November, I turned to Gordon. The fit was natural: the book argues that Abraham Lincoln took the Declaration's claim that "all men are created equal" as his guiding moral compass—and that he refocused the nation on that claim. Gordon, ever the gentleman, offered generous praise.

He was, in many respects, the dean of American historians. He will be very hard to replace.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

Such an excellent essay, still much needed today.

[Rod Dreher @roddreher]

In memory of Robert Louis Wilken, who died today from cancer at 89, here, from 2004, is one of his most important essays. It is one of the intellectual touchstones of my life and work. What a great, great man we lost today.
https://t.co/OJpS2V57ZR

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

As a long time LDS observer and reader of their literature, this is correct. The one recent past of an attempt at systematic theology (Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine) by a general authority of the church, is rarely used by their modern LDS apologists. Any LDS can correct me if I’m wrong with this.

[Josh Hochschild @JoshHochschild]

On LDS: It is easier to converse about what they say and how they behave than about what they believe. There is a tradition of Christian theology, as systematic reflection on the content and implications of Christian doctrines, but LDS culture doesn’t really engage with it, and there really isn’t such a thing as a separate Mormon systematic theology.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

I have watched this weekend’s blow up regarding LDS as non Christian and their obvious distaste for that. As someone who has dialogued a lot over this for 45 years, almost all just talk right past each other. Unless each side can start with humility and then ask questions of each other with sincerity, it’s all just noise.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@LukeFHan Understand. You never really answered my first question. Have you read enough of the scholarship of early Christian history to understand that Fredricksen is only one of many ways to interpret the sources? I would be curious to who else you might have read.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@IdleAn94328 Your post says Bible. I wasn’t commenting on any verse. I was commenting on what you posted. Maybe try and be more careful.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

@dilanesper How to write a post showing you know very little about creeds and Baptists.

[Russ Schwartz @RussSchwartz]

If you haven’t interacted or understood the criticisms of someone like Fredricksen then all I ask is you don’t use it like a club, otherwise you come across as someone also who may not have a clue. It works both ways. Yes, many on both sides have poor understandings of historical method, but don’t let that keep you from being able to evaluate how to view the ancient world and its sources.