Arrogance of the Present

"If you are standing on some one's shoulders it's probably a good idea not to kick him in the head."

Some times when I read I see myself, not the self I like but the real thing. You know the one I am talking about, the one who has all those traits we usually like to ignore or justify as being appropriate when we exhibit them. I saw that trait when I was reading The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch this morning. I love this book, it is challenging and thought provoking. But every once in a while he does what I do and what a number of the current writers seem to be doing now - exhibiting the arrogance of the present. There is an assumption that if those who came before us knew what we knew or had the level of awareness or perception that we do then we would not be in mess we're in. He rightly points out the pitfalls of Christendom but he almost goes too far. Christendom has been around for 17 centuries. And for all its ills the church has survived. The church will always survive. If we have not killed it in the past 20 centuries we are not going kill in the 50 years. The church has more than survived, it has grown and expanded. It has brought medical care to those areas without it, brought new technology and crop management to impoverished areas. The gates of hell... Has the church make mistakes? Well yeah. Wait till you see the ones we make in the next 20 years.

But I do this. I was born in 1955 into a church that never sang anything unless it was found in a book and the only screens we had were on windows to keep the insects out. Youth ministry was done by dedicated parents and volunteers. The sound system was one microphone and a few speakers. Local missions was going to the city jail or rescue mission and doing whatever they needed done. What makes the way I do church so much better? Why do we think we are so much smarter or more in tune with what God wants? So I have 32 channels in my church with video screens and media shout or small groups and whole menu of local options to serve for the kingdom? The church I was born into loved Jesus. They loved me. They honored the generation that came before.

The arrogance of the present whether it is in my church or the emergent church or the mega-church is attitude we can ill afford to maintain. Cultures change and therefore the ways we operate must change as well. But we make these changes in humility. The people who came before us were followers of Christ. We are not smarter, we stand on their shoulders and we are beneficiaries of the lessons they learned, often the hard way. We ought to be grateful, aware, but grateful.

I pray that this arrogance may be a momentary bump in our road. But I am not sure it will be.