History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of the environment and the pressure of the air we breath. Lord Acton.
I have loved this quote for a long time. The first part reminds me of our tendancy to repeat the mistakes of other times. Knowing history can help us not to do this, and in doing so it can deliver us from the undue influence of these times. As we study history, we can see the reasons why people did things and the way we could be tempted to do the same things. The study of history can also enable us to see how things we take for granted now are not the "way things have always been", they are a product of historical events. In this way, seeing how current situations are a product of history can liberate us to challenge "the way things are" are cast off historical influences that are not good. This ties in with the meaning of the second part of the quote.
I love the second part of the quote even more than the first. I often realise how much my own time and environment influence me. To some extent this is inevitable. However, it is important to minimise how much we allow the time we live in to dictate our choices. I often feel disturbed when I hear Christians speak harshly against their brethren who lived in other times and made mistakes. I feel disturbed because I think their comments are short-sighted and often show a lack of awareness of how we do the same thing.
For example, the way Christians treated Australian indigenous people was at times less than ideal and at times plainly abusive. I think we should condemn without hesitation the things that were done. However, that is different to condeming the people who did them and saying that these people could not have been Christians. In cases of clear abuse which were not repented of, it is fair to question the person's salvation. We are told to evaluate the fruit of someone's profession, and we can make some judgements based upon this. However, in many cases what the Christians did came out of a mistaken attempts to help aboriginal people and bring the gospel to them. Many of their mistaken attempts could have been averted if they had a better understanding of scripture and they had taken the trouble to apply the Bible instead of the wisdom of their times. It is worthwhile to note this. However, I am disturbed when people condemn these Christians while they continue to assume that it is fine to go along with current wisdom.
As Greg Price wrote in his article "Taking moral equivalence to an extreme" (
The Australian November 2, 2006), it is easy to patronise and condemn those who acted in the past. He wrote about the "stolen generation" of aboriginal children who were removed from their parents (sometimes by Christians). This was done in an attempt to help them, and it was often done on a racist basis.
"Patronising the past also neatly shifts the spotlight. Perhaps Australians of the '40s or '50s should not have removed children from their communities. But is the present hands-off approach any better? Where's the moral advantage in leaving Aboriginal children in communities degrated by alcoholish, petrol sniffing, domestic violence, and sexual abuse? It's much easier to apologise for something that happened 50 years ago than come up with a policy solution to an existing problem."Price's last sentence says exactly what I feel. It is easy to stand on the sidelinse and criticise people who tried their hardest to act rightly. It is much harder to consider how we should evaluate the times in which we live and how we can solve current problems. Today I read Scott Brown on this topic, in a post that exposes the way we adopt worldly methods to reach youth and therefore we fail. He also did a post on Al Mohler's wisdom on the education of children. Mohler says in part: “I don't think God calls upon Christian parents to put our children in the schools as guinea pigs as salt and light. I'll be honest. I just don't think that at all is the biblical vision. The public schools are an innovation. They are not a fact of nature."
I can think of lots of other areas where what is currently popular or expedient plays a large part in the decisions of Christians. One example is the way Christian couples choose to use hormonal birth control even if they know the facts about how it can act to terminate human life, because it is easiest and they don't want children right now. It is easy to go with the flow and assume that it is fine to do whatever seems expedient or current without evaluating what the Bible has to say. I hope that I extend grace to other Christians who make decisions based on the times in which they live, or who apply the Bible differently to how I do. I also want to extend the same grace to those who lived long before me.
However, in the midst of praying for a gracious attitude I also remind myself that history can be "our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of the environment and the pressure of the air we breath." I don't want to blunder along, with the time I live in dictating my decisions. Whenever I think about Christians in the past, I do not grimace as much at their mistakes as I do at my own capacity to buy into the type of thinking that created their mistakes. I know there must be many areas where I do adopt unbiblical ways of thinking. As I learn more about history, I hope that I can see that the way things are done now is often not the only way or the best way. I can also gain a vision for how to live differently. Christians in the past often understood and applied scripture better than we do today, and I can learn from that. God has placed each of us in the time in which we live. By God's grace, I hope to be granted insight on how to live in the most biblical way possible to achieve his purposes in this time.
21 November - I thought I'd quickly note some of the other things that I believe we need to think about in terms of the Bible rather than current thinking: the roles of men and women, methods of poverty relief, illegitimacy, business practices, entertainment and amusement choices, consumerism, and the law. I would enjoy hearing from readers who can share the issues they have thought about in relation to the difference between current practices and biblical thinking.
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