Christianity is rooted in real people, places and events. In his new podcast, History’s Last Stand, historian and theologian Michael F. Bird explores the moments that shaped our world, the often-overlooked influence of Christianity in those moments, and why understanding the past matters more than ever.
Join Michael F. Bird for History’s Last Stand, available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
What has Christianity to do with history? Well, quite a lot.
For a start, Christianity is a religion founded on the belief that God acts in history, from the Exodus and the story of Israel to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The Gospels are not set in Narnia, Middle-earth or a galaxy far, far away. They narrate the story of God making good on his promises to renew Israel and, through the Messiah, Jesus Christ, to transform the world.
Compare this with Buddhism. Even without a historical Buddha, the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths could still be taught and followed. Christianity is different. You cannot remove Jesus from Christianity and leave the faith intact.
The Christian story is grounded in a world of deserts and sheep, tribal warfare and blood sacrifice, temples and empires, armies and crucifixions. It is about real people with real problems and their hope in a real God who will make things on earth as they are in heaven.
God acts in history, and so to history we must go.
The second reason history matters is that the fabric of Western civilisation is deeply infused with Christianity. The development of parliaments, universities, hospitals, human rights and abolitionist movements all took place within cultures profoundly shaped by Christian ideas.
When the American Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal”, it describes that truth as self-evident. Yet it was not self-evident to many of the great civilisations of the ancient world.
The conviction that human beings possess equal dignity emerged in a culture immersed in ideas such as humanity being made in the image of God, the Christian teaching that there is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free”, and the biblical claim that God created every nation from one common humanity.
Even Marxism and “wokeness”, movements that often reject Christianity, are riffing on ideas from the Christian moral register. They draw upon its language of equality, justice, concern for the oppressed and solidarity with the marginalised. Yet many people remain unaware of Christianity’s profound, and sometimes clandestine, influence on the history of the world. That story needs to be told.
That is why Premier is launching History’s Last Stand, a new podcast hosted by historian and theologian Mike Bird.
The series will explore Christian history, from the historical Jesus to the martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But it will also venture far beyond the walls of the Church, examining extraordinary people, civilisations and turning points across history, while asking how Christianity intersected with them and helped shape the world we inhabit today.
From the origins of Islam to the rise of modern science, from the collapse of the Roman Empire to Europe’s first encounters with the Americas, Christians have repeatedly been present when history changed direction.
In History’s Last Stand, Mike Bird explores the what, when, how and why of the past through a lively catalogue of episodes designed to entertain as much as enlighten.
Along the way, he speaks with leading historians, biographers, archaeologists and storytellers about the great moments of history, why they still matter, and what they might reveal about God’s providence within the unfolding human story.
Join Michael F. Bird for History’s Last Stand, available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
