The value of heritage

Humorist Harry Leon Wilson, while visiting the Grand Canyon, once remarked, “At last, I know a place to throw my old razor blades!”

His comment reminds us of what is wrong with our current view of history. We look at the great figures and events of the past and trivialize them.  History becomes caricatures. Washington is just a face on the dollar bill.  Napoleon becomes a pastry; Caesar becomes a salad; and Babe Ruth a candy bar.

Contemporary church seeks to relate to our fast-changing world by denying the past.  Some will not sing songs more than twenty years ago. Sanctuaries are designed (without the slightest recognition of irony) to not look “churchy.”  There’s little to remind us of our faith’s deep historical roots.

It’s a shame. By ignoring history, we deny what connects us. Think of history as a tree We are the topmost branches. We see other believes as separate branches, and do not see how we are interconnected.    But if we trace our origin back, we discover we discover our commonality, until we all eventually come from a common source, which holds us together. 

Our faith depends upon its historicity.   If it were discovered that Buddha did not exist, Buddhism would not be changed significantly.   But Christianity depends upon the historicity,  divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ.  It is based on real, objective events that happened in real time and space.  

In the best-selling book The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher writes “To cut a people off from their tradition is to break the chain of historical memory and deprive them of a culture. No wonder Christian culture withers in modernity.”[1]

Yet we are severing ourselves from our roots even while the rest of the world is seeking theirs. The internet giant Ancestry.com has sold more than a million aps for smart phones, owns subsidiaries in twelve countries, and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Recently, it acquired its ten billionth genealogical record.[2] History books continue to sell well, and are regularly listed on the best-seller list.

There are a growing number of Christians who grew up in the rootless “newness” the modern evangelical movement who are ditching it for something with historical resonance.  The fascination with the Puritans within the Reformed movement, the Messianic Jewish movement, the renewed interest in Eastern Orthodoxy, an increased number of conversions to Catholicism as well as the exploration of ancient faith practices in the Spiritual Formation movement demonstrate the hunger Christians to connect with Christian heritage in a meaningful way.  

A common trope in evangelical circles is that the church is only “one generation away from extinction.”  This may encourage us to evangelize our youth, but it simply isn’t true.  Heritage reminds us that the church has been going on for a long, long time. It gives us historical perspective that God’s will cannot be thwarted by the mistakes of a single generation. The church has survived heretical disputes, secular takeovers of ecclesiastical power, schism, persecution, and corrupt clergy. It is not about to die now—but will continue until Christ’s return and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

But none of this directly relates to the subject at hand, which is our own personal faith.  Why should we personally value our spiritual heritage?

First, because it gives us a sense of perspective. When the we are in difficult times, history shows us that we were not always there.  When we are in good times, history reminds us to prepare. 

Second, because it gives us a full tool box.  When my father died, I inherited all his tools. Some of them were too told to use and had to be discarded.  Most of them, however, are still useful.  Our heritage gives us a full tool box of ideas that worked in previous generation, and are still useful today.  Methods of prayer such as the lectio divina of the exercises of St. Ignatius are still of value today. So are many of the lyrics of ancient hymns.  It sometimes amazes me that a faith based on a two-thousand-year-old book can see no value in writings and practices of people only two or three generations past! What they learned back for the most part still works today.

Third, because heritage reminds us that we are not as important as we think we are.

Our knowledge of history has repeatedly helped us to challenge the errors of the present.  Whenever we lose our grip on history, we are left adrift in a sea of contemporary relevance, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men.” (Ephesians 4:14)

Recently, I heard a podcast with a former evangelical leader who had converted to Roman Catholicism.  He described the freedom he felt in being part of a church that did not say everything began and end with him, that did not feel the need to recreate itself every generation. 

When we forget the past, the first result is that we lose humility. We begin to think that we are the beginning and end of all things.  Our lives are not a not as long as we think, and our works do not last very long afterwards.  A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.  

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[1] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (p. 104). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] http://corporate.ancestry.com/careers/companyhistory/