1.4 —Why History? (16 min video)

Transcript

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Well, welcome back. In today’s lecture, we’re going to unpack the question of why we do the whole thing called history. Really just building on why we do education, why we do school, which of course is building on why we do life. But as we unpack this, I want to unpack a couple of general ideas before I actually give you the list of reasons why we actually study the past.

And the first thing I want to talk about is this whole idea of progressivism, which is becoming more and more of kind of a catch word.

Progressivism is really this kind of worship, this ideal of progress, that basically mankind and the world are ever progressing towards something better, that we are ever becoming better and better based upon our own efforts.

Lord Acton, one of the great commentators of the past, called progress or the religion or the love or the worship of progress the religion of those who had none.

In other words, another word for atheism or secular humanism, that this world is all there is and so we must pour all of ourselves into improving it.

And that of course is very different from the gospel, which actually causes us to want to change the world, not because this is all that there is, because there’s a God who’s over it, because there is a God who’s actually done for us so much that we actually respond with thanksgiving and praise to others in terms of service. In fact, that’s how we ended the whole pursuit of education in the first place in the previous lesson. Another thing about this whole idea of progressivism, I want to point out to you is that when we say this whole time period of modernity, you’re going to see that there’s kind of this ideal that man is getting better and better, and he’s always moving in this kind of upward direction. In fact, we often in modernity look at the past as something that was backwards, as something that’s inferior, as something that was unenlightened, as something that was feeble or cowardly or bigoted. In other words, we’re often very arrogant when it comes to judging the past as being all kind of hogwash or bunk, as Henry Ford called it. That’s really a kind of a key thing we need to kind of unpack because we live in a culture that’s obsessed with kind of the current moment. We live in a culture of post-modernity, you might call it, that’s obsessed with things like equality, that’s obsessed with things like being free and independent from the ancient paths and the ancient truths and the past period. We live in a culture that’s kind of obsessed with proving truth based upon things like data, based upon things like scientific studies, based even sometimes upon things like surveys.

In fact, we kind of have a preoccupation with that kind of knowledge. Neil Postman, another great commentator from recent years, said that we also live in a society that has kind of has a messed up view of technology, kind of has a messed up view of man constantly improving himself.

In fact, he simply called it a technopoly. This whole idea where we submit all forms of our culture to technology and worship it more as a god instead of actually seeing it as something that can be used as a tool.

David Hall, who comments from Neil Postman’s book and his book, “The Arrogance of the Modern,” talks about it like this. He says, “Technology, to turn a phrase,” using Neil Postman’s words here, “is a form of cultural AIDS, an acronym for anti-information deficiency syndrome. That is why it is possible to say almost anything without contradiction, provided you begin your utterance with the words ‘a study has shown’.” Or, “Scientists now tell us that. In technopoly, there can be no transcendent sense of purpose or meaning. There can be no cultural coherence. Technopoly deprives us of the social, political, historical, metaphysical, logical or spiritual basis for knowing what is beyond belief. In other words, we live in a culture where truth is determined based upon scientific studies. There’s often nothing that goes beyond us in the actual way of thinking of things. What’s curious about this is that the scriptures look at the value of the past and the ancient ideas very differently. In fact, the scriptures tend to emphasize the whole idea of remembering the past. So we have the book of Jude, for example, that talks about how the faith has been handed down once and for all to the saints.

It’s something that we pass on from generation to generation. Or, for example, we have Hebrews 11 that tells us that our ancestors, those who have gone before us, though dead, like Abel, for example, they still speak.

Because even though they’re dead to us in this world, they’re not dead in the next. not dead to God himself. Their lives, their actions, their faithfulness, they still speak to us. Jesuits have called this whole concept the democracy of the dead. This whole idea that we think about the people who have gone before us and we actually consider what they valued. We actually consider what it is that they saw as important and we likewise let that be a value that we share. We likewise let that actually shape us. You see this any time that you actually listen to parents or grandparents or older people that you respect when they actually pass on to you what really matters and you listen for a moment, that’s in a sense a democracy of living people of course, but that’s kind of hinting at the democracy of the dead where you actually value the wisdom of the ancients because there’s something worthwhile about it that has been passed on. That’s why you need to find those mentors that you respect and actually see what is it they have gone through, what gives them confidence, What is it they have learned in a long life of faithfulness?

In terms of remembering, it’s huge in the scriptures. In fact, the scriptures have 300 different variations of the words for remember used throughout them. They’re constantly reminding us of a God who doesn’t change, who always remembers who he is, and remembers especially his promises to us. In fact, you can find the scriptures, God talking about how he remembers Noah, how he remembers Abraham, how he remembers Rachel, or how he remembers Hannah, or how he remembers his covenant with Israel itself.

In fact, God describes himself as a God of the living. The people who once lived here and have completed the great race, as Paul calls it, they’re no longer dead. They live with him in all eternity. They’ve achieved the goal, which is God himself. Zechariah, at the birth of Jesus, says, quote in Luke, he says that God has shown mercy to our fathers and he has remembered his holy covenant.

In the Psalms, both in Psalm 30 and in Psalm 97, we’re commanded to give thanks at remembering God’s holy name. In Psalm 102, his righteousness is described as an enduring remembrance, something that we’re supposed to remember throughout all generations. Throughout Psalm 78, in fact, this is one of the biggest Psalms to talk about the value of remembering, especially remembering the past. Israel is told to remember that God is their rock, that’s Psalm 78, 34. God remembers that we are flesh, that we are a passing breeze, Psalm 78, 39. God gives us mercy, even though we don’t always remember his power, Psalm 78, 42. And throughout the scriptures, we have reminders to remember that it was God who led us out of Egypt, that it was God who gave us the law, to remember our former rebellions and to not do them again.

You find that in Deuteronomy 8. Disciples are told to remember Jesus’ teachings in Luke 24. We are told to remember our resolve after first receiving the light of the gospel and to have confidence, that’s in Hebrews 10. We’re told to remember what we have received and heard, to obey it and to repent, that’s in Revelation 3. In other words, this whole theme of remembering and not forgetting is pretty key throughout the scriptures. is to constantly be reminded of who we are. And that’s necessary because we live in a world that has fallen and is messed up. We live in a world that is overwhelming with its cares and with its problems. We must remember where we came from, remember exactly who God is and what he has promised if we wish to have any hope of actually having joy in this present world or in this present darkness.

And all the same though, with those kind of major points, about progressivism and remembrance at the beginning of this lecture, I want to talk now about specific reasons why we actually study history.

Number one, we study history to show forth the glory of an infinite God. In other words, we study history for the glory of God. We study history to know who he is and what he has actually done. Number two, we also study history to show that all things do fall apart, that all flesh is grass, which is what Isaiah says, also what the psalmist says, that all things have their season and all things that are in this fallen world will pass away.

In fact, history has a certain gravity to us that should remind us of the grave. In fact, gravity and grave are words that are etymologically related to each other. In fact, I love the lyrics of one of Suphon Stephen’s songs in which he says, “I know, I know the nation’s past. I know the nations, I know that they rust at last. They tremble with the nervous thought of having been at last forgot.” In fact, that’s one of the things that we wrestle with, this whole idea that we will have an end, this whole idea that there will come a time in which people no longer remember us.

I still remember when I was a kid playing on the golf course that was behind my house. I remember my brother and I discovered a cemetery in the woods of that golf course. It was overgrown. Just a few tombstones overgrown with weeds and with ivy. But there was this whole reality of, oh, somebody is buried here. Somebody that was loved. Somebody that had a life. And yet we know nothing about them other than what we can make out from the tombstones, which were so badly weather-worn, it was actually quite difficult to even make out a name.

But still, history is a reminder that the world as we know it will not always exist this way. That we ourselves will come to an end. And so we have to be prepared with that. We have to be prepared with an answer to that. Which of course is where the gospel comes in. Number three, we study history to show the redemption of an infinite God. We study what Frederick Buechner called the “magnificent defeat.” The fact that even though we are often shooting ourselves in the foot, Even though we are often experiencing great pain and turmoil from living in a fallen world and also from the actual sins that we commit, we still find that there is a God who is merciful.

We still find a God who allows us to stumble into blessings. And also, of course, gives us the big picture of history we call integration. The whole idea that there is redemption and behind that redemption there is a rational and good and personal and infinite and eternal God who is driving all of these things.

That should actually teach us the delight in history and what God has actually done. It should teach us to have a hopeful view of history. Number four, we study history to know our own past. To know, therefore, our identity. What makes us the people that we are? What makes us the way that we are? Anytime you learn about your family’s own history, it’s usually very telling and kind of explains, say, why you are the way you are or why your parents are the way they are or why your grandparents are the way they are.

Those kinds of things are huge. They show us both our strengths and our weaknesses. They also kind of show us a trajectory of where we’re going in the future to help us kind of see where we’ve come from and where we’re going. But the other incredible thing about history is they show us that we have a rich past. History shows us that we have incredible people to look to in the past who are famous not just for the great things they did, but are also famous for the fact that they learned to repent if they were true heroes.

In other words, seeing history and seeing the experiences of those in the past helps us combat anxiety, helps us combat fear, helps us remember what Christ said when he says, “Do not fear this current world, because I have overcome the world.” But you have to know what he actually did in the past to really grab on to that promise. A fifth, and this goes with kind of the point I was just making to you, we study history to know heroes. To know heroes who were faithful, to know heroes who were sinful, and heroes who learned to persevere and learned to actually humble themselves in repentance.

In other words, when we approach the heroes of history, we shouldn’t just say, “Wow, guys were kind of amazing and I can never be like that, we should see what made them tick. What is it that they actually love? And we should pursue the same loves. Not so we can do the same things that they did necessarily, but so that we can actually do amazing things as God works through us.

Six, we study history to know the villains. The villains who are unfaithful. The villains who are sinful like the heroes, but the villains who had no repentance, who who had no humility, who were focused upon their own pride, who were focused upon themselves and gratifying themselves.

The heroes, the villains that is, who refused to confess their sin. We should understand the villains not simply as bad guys. We should understand the villains in light of the fact that we’ve been changed not because of us, because of God himself. In other words, when we take a look at villains, we should recognize that would be us apart from the grace of God. Seventh, we study history, and this is kind of the reason it’s most often given, to avoid the mistakes of the past. The past does repeat itself. We do commit the same mistakes over and over again, whether it be in our own lifetime, or whether it be throughout a series of lifetimes.

We often commit the same mistakes that our parents or grandparents made, or people in the past have actually made. History teaches us to be humble. History teaches us to recognize those mistakes and to work on avoiding them. In other words, history teaches us what we call sanctification. This whole idea of becoming more and more like Christ, not by somehow getting better or becoming more and more good, whatever that exactly means, but in recognizing just how deep our sin goes and recognizing just how desperately we need him as we actually pursue the right things.

Finally, this goes along with other things I’ve told you, we study history to know what it means to be human. God created us in the way he made us because he wanted to. And then of course he himself became humans, the incarnation, that’s the very center and the most important part of all of history. So history teaches us that the fact that even though there are different technologies that existed at different times and the people of the past may not have had the access information or had the tools that we have now, they still share the same hopes and fears.

They still have the same desires. They still have the same concerns and the same problems that we face now. History has a remarkable way of giving us those examples to actually encourage us as we live our lives in the present day.