A Note on History & Historian
In
2021↗, for instance, I cited a scholar named Mark Noll (2002)—
Theological changes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also involved a shift in meaning for key concepts that operated in both religious and political life, for example, "freedom", "justice", "virtue", and "vice". For theology, the process at work was the same as Gordon Wood once described for intellectual developments more generally: "Although words and concepts may remain outwardly the same for centuries, their particular functions and meanings do not and could not remain static—not as long as individuals attempt to use them to explain new social circumstances and make meaningful new social behavior." In America as much was happening in theology from new meanings given to old words as from the introduction of new vocabularies.
—and, ah, there it is, ca.
2010↗.
It's an important passage trying to explain Christian experience in the United States, and it seems such an easy and casual reference:
"For theology, the process at work was the same as Gordon Wood once described for intellectual developments more generally: 'Although words and concepts may remain outwardly the same for centuries, their particular functions and meanings do not and could not remain static—not as long as individuals attempt to use them to explain new social circumstances and make meaningful new social behavior.'"
Anyway, it was important to me, and first to mind upon learning that Gordon Wood died yesterday in Rhode Island, at age 92:
On Sunday, one of Rhode Island's most accomplished writers and historians, Gordon Wood, was hit and killed by a motorist.
He was 92.
Wood won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize.
Wood was one of America's most accomplished scholars on the American Revolution — he won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for his work The Radicalism of the American Revolution. In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal.
He was the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His list of academic awards over the past 50 years is unmatched - he is the leading Revolutionary era historian …
… East Providence Police reported that on Sunday, "officers were dispatched to the Shaw's Supermarket parking lot on Taunton Avenue for a report of a pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle. Upon the officer's arrival, they began treating a 92-year-old male from Providence who sustained serious injuries in the crash. The male was transported to Rhode Island Hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries."
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Notes:
"Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author and Historian Gordon Wood Hit and Killed by Motorist". GoLocalProv. 8 June 2026. GoLocalProv.com. 8 June 2026. https://www.golocalprov.com/news/pu...torian-gordon-wood-hit-and-killed-by-motorist
