Historical Training Helps Well-Being w/ Dr. Scott Wenig (Ph.D. CU Boulder, Church History)(TRP Ep. 94)
Dr. Scott Wenig, Ph.D. is a professionally trained historian, specializing in the history of the Church (which would include all branches of Christianity). Dr. Wenig’s day job is the Haddon W. Robinson Chair of Biblical Preaching at Denver Seminary, but since his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder is in Church History (with original research for his dissertation in Europe), he also teaches Church History for the Seminary.
In fact, Scott was my (Dr. Mather’s) Church History professor when I took the year-long M.Div. sequence (as an M.A. Academic track student) over 20 years ago.
Scott was my Early and Medieval Church History professor , as well as the history scholar on the Path of Paul trip to Greece and Turkey and the Mediterranean world back in 2001 in the months before 9/11 (along with Dr. Bill Klien, Ph.D., a New Testament scholar and my Greek teacher, and Dr. Ralph R. Covell, Ph.D., a specialist in Church History in China and Taiwan).
He’s an interesting character. He has a wonderful sense of humor which isn’t completely on display here (not as much as it was on the long bus-rides through Turkey in 2001). It’s not normal to have a Preaching professor have such intense historical professional training in original archival research, or a Ph.D. in history. It enables Scott to have an interest in almost everything and to approach crisis situations with a measure of disciplined reflection on how the past shapes the meaning of the present.
Why? Because we’re always searching for the appropriate historical analogues with which to understand accurately what we’re facing, why, and what you can do productively about it. This helps us answer for ourselves the fundamental question: How we can be in the world.
Getting the appropriate historical analogues is not an easy task, though, and requires more training that you might have. You can’t just snap your fingers, or look at some memes on social media, and have it right.
Studying more history may be the way forward for you. That requires a good mentor.
I took Church History with Dr. David Howle, Ph.D. as an undergraduate in Hawaii even though I didn’t need it to graduate (and the Navy paid for most of it). I used that class to get out of the single semester Church History class for my MA program at Denver Seminary, but then decided I wanted to take the year long M.Div. track (M.Div. at the time was a year longer of study than the MA academic track). So I had 3 semesters, when I only “needed” 1. I did 3x the work. Why? In part because of people like Scott Wenig.
(My Reformation and Modern Church History professor was the late Dr. Bruce Shelley, Ph.D., author Church History in Plain Language).
The Republican Professor is a pro-historical-training, pro-having-the-appropriate-historical-analogues, pro-mental-well-being, pro-Haddon-Robinson-if-you-can-believe-that, pro-Church-History podcast .
Therefore, welcome Dr. Scott Wenig, Ph.D., Church History professor and travel companion extraordinaire .
The Republican Professor podcast is produced and hosted by Dr. Lucas J. Ph.D.
TRP Podcast is also available in audio only formats on Apple podcasts, etc.
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Warmly,
Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D.
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