Historians say that the sacred music of the Christian church, such as that of Palestrina, Allegri and Tallis, is one of the greatest gifts of the gospel to Western civilization and on par with the splendor of the magnificent European cathedrals, such as Chartres and Lincoln. yet this rich treasury is an unknown world to many Evangelicals, whose worship music often draws from songs written after 2000…But much of the run-of-the-mill renewal songs, which are repeated endlessly and constructed more on rhythm than melody, confine Evangelicals within a shallow theology, threadbare worship, fleeting relevance and historical amnesia. Along with soft preaching and a general rage for innovation, such music is another reason why many Evangelical churches resemble a field of quick-growing, quick-disappearing mushrooms rather than a longstanding forest of oaks. Again and again I have been regaled with the church growth maxim, “You have to sacrifice one generation to reach the next.” But this turns on a false assumption, and it leads to the telling fact that the fatal weakness of Evangelical church growth is succession. Church growth “success” without succession will always prove failure in the end.”
Os Guiness in Impossible People p176
Cultural Blindspots and Chronological Snobbery
We all have cultural blindspots. It cannot be helped. There are certain things that each age and culture takes for granted. Unquestioned assumptions that rule us. In a previous post, we saw Elizabeth Bartholet’s unquestioned assumption that the State has the right to shape the thinking of children. In addition, we are hampered by what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery – the assumption that everything now is better than before. It’s often only as we confront another culture that we start to question our beliefs and even identify our blindspots.
As Christians, we must always be on the lookout for these cultural blindspots. They may be hiding explicitly anti-Christian ways of thinking or living. One way of doing this is to study History, in particular church history. As we read widely from different time periods, we get a feel for the worldviews and thinking of different ages. C.S. Lewis regarded this as very important. He encouraged people to read one old book for every new one!
It’s natural for us to fall into the trap chronological snobbery. We think we are better than our forebears. Clearly we are in some ways, notably technological ability. Yet even this rests on the discoveries of those who preceded us. But our superiority here causes us to assume our whole way of life is better. That is, if we think about it at all. But the same sinful nature that afflicted those who came before also afflicts us. People often will point to issues like slavery, or the treatment of women in past ages to show that we are superior to those who came before us.
Not at all. We just see these particular issues clearly because they are not cultural blindspots for us. Revisit our times in a history book 500 years hence, and there will be a whole new list of atrocities and sins not least of them, in my opinion, being abortion that our descendants will note, but we are on the whole largely blind to.
Maybe, just maybe, many of our patterns of life are not better than our forebears.