Some evangelicals could very well define “church history” as “the study of how everybody misinterpreted the Bible until we came along.” In fact, on several occasions I’ve heard people actually say, “I don’t care if I’m the first person in history to read the Bible this way. If that’s what Scripture says, then I’m going to accept it.” We should admire this confidence in Scripture. However, that statement places lot of unquestioned confidence in one’s own abilities to properly interpret the Bible. Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, but I don’t believe in the sufficiency of self. The kind of arrogance that makes a person completely abandon the contributions from the past is what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” He defined chronological snobbery as “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. (C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life [San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1955], 207–8)
Grown men often look back over their lives and reflect on how far they’ve come and the progress they’ve made throughout. But poet Thomas S. Jones, presents the opposite perspective: what if the younger version of me were to peer forward and see what kind of person I have become?
Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play—
The lad I used to be.
And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder he still hopes to see
The man I might have been.
Those words haunt me. I often wonder what the bygone generations of Christianity might think if they could peer “across the fields of yesterday” and see what had become of the faith for which they lived and died. I constantly ask myself, “If the church fathers or Protestant Reformers were to show up at my church, would they worship . . . or run?” Sometimes I see such a pitch of “chronological snobbery” in our avant-garde evangelical churches that I wonder if we might purposely drive them off . . . then brag about having done so!
Studying church history will help evangelicals understand their place in church history. It will help them see that their particular church tradition—with all its idiosyncrasies—is a flawed but valid part of something much bigger than themselves. They will realize that their present form of Christianity is itself a period that will one day be left in the distant past. They will be humbled by the moving testimonies, passionate ministries, and sacrificial devotion of the saints of old. The result? Church history will curb the arrogance of our present.
8 replies to "Why Study Church History – Reason #2: Studying Church History Will Curb the Arrogance of Our Present"
This is certainly a major problem, but I have encountered it much more outside of church circles than within them. Often there is a dose of positivism involved, and these views of history are fundamentally teleological and so very misleading. If the only problem were snobbery, it wouldn’t be too bad of a thing. Rather, it completely distorts history and makes the study of it (and the evaluation of ourselves and our future) distorted to the point of meaninglessness.
Oddly enough we can thank/blame Christian theology for this in many ways. Christian theology (which has defined the way westerners understand reality for 1500 years) is heavily influenced by eschatology, which is its own teleological view of history that sees all of history leading up to a final point/cause. In eastern societies, where you rarely find this kind of metaphysical worldview, you have the rather aimless (and depressing) historiographical view of endless cycles.
Maybe it takes a certain mindset to enjoy history. I am now loving reading Schaff’s History of the Christian Church in 8 volumes, finishing vol. 2 now. It’s an eye opener to understand the details of how we got here from there! The Preacher was right, there is nothing new under the sun!
Love this:
“It will help them see that their particular church tradition—with all its idiosyncrasies—is a flawed but valid part of something much bigger than themselves. “
Studying church hisory helps keep us on guard against all the nuttiness that people try to inject into the Christian faith.
This nuttiness usually redefines Christ and His gospel and resurfaces all the time.
define “church history” as “the study of how everybody misinterpreted the Bible until we came along.”
Why do so many of the truly reformed think history started with Calvin?
As I have often been told, “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.”
[…] Why Study Church History – Reason #2: Studying Church History will Curb the Arrogance of Our… Some evangelicals could very well define “church history” as “the study of how everybody misinterpreted the Bible until we came along.” […]
Reminds me of Chesterton’s observation that:
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross.” G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.