jayber crow

For the past three months I’ve been up to my neck in church history, and you know, I kind of like it. I’ve been made very aware of my ignorance of the story of God’s people through the centuries. I guess in a lot of our churches we assume that church history is both dull and unnecessary, since we can jump right into our personal relationship with Jesus through prayer and Scripture and the Spirit.

But this is our family history, and it has shaped us in ways we aren’t even aware of. We often think it’s a simple thing to pick up the Bible and read it, when in reality the way we interpret it is deeply influenced by those who have gone before. Here’s how Justo Gonzalez puts it:

When we read, for instance, that “the just shall live by faith,” Martin Luther is whispering at our ear how we are to interpret those words – and this is true even for those of us who have never even heard of Martin Luther. When we hear that “Christ died for our sins,” Anselm of Canterbury sits in the pew with us, even though we may not have the slightest idea who Anselm was… The notion that we read the New Testament exactly as the early Christian did, without any weight of tradition colouring our interpretation, is an illusion. It is also a dangerous illusion, for it tends to absolutize our interpretation, confusing it with the Word of God.

Becoming aware of these influences allows us to be humbled and thankful for those who have blazed a trail for us. And it also allows us to discern where these influences may be less than healthy, so that we can learn to read Scripture with fresh vision. Anselm is an uncomfortable example – he has had a huge influence on the way most of us think about the cross, in terms of Jesus paying the debt that sinful humanity owed to God. But Anselm’s thinking was significantly shaped by the medieval society in which he lived. He pictured God in the image of a feudal lord who would punish his subjects if they didn’t repay their debts to him. How much has that cultural projection coloured our view of God and the cross? I know that’s going to keep you up at night.

If you’re a typically short-sighted evangelical like me your church history probably jumps from the book of Acts to the Reformation, which leaves sixteen centuries of unexplored territory. Studying church history is like discovering you have lots of relatives you had never been told about. Some of them are smart and funny and give you chocolate and take you camping, and you can’t believe you haven’t been introduced to them before. Some of them smell bad and wear bad jumpers and feed you soggy broccoli and you would rather not be seen in public with them. You would love to disown them, but even if you deny they exist, their story is connected to yours and you share some of the same DNA.

If the gospel is all about bringing together people who are different, people with nothing in common, people who are natural enemies, then there’s something profound about learning to embrace all the characters of church history as part of our family story. Is there room in our family for the crazy Irish monks, who created beautiful manuscripts like the Book of Kells and kept the light of learning alive through the Dark Ages, but also punished their bodies by eating bread mixed with sand, and standing for hours up to their necks in freezing cold water to pray? Or what about Bernard of Clairvaux, who preached beautiful sermons about the love of God so that they called him Dr. Mellifluous, and worked to reform a corrupt church, but also preached to stir up support for the Second Crusade, and believed the best way to reform the church was by strengthening the authority of the papacy?

I’m thinking if we can learn to embrace all these complex characters as part of our family story, that has to be good for our sense of God’s family today. If we accept the early Orthodox Christians and medieval Catholics as our ancestors in the faith, it’s got to be harder to sneer at or disown Orthodox and Catholic believers today. If we acknowledge the eccentric and strange and downright offensive as part of the Christian story, that’s got to impact how we relate to the Christians we find odd or rude or embarrassing in our world. There’s still going to be lots of passionate disagreement and discussion, but maybe it can be more like a lively debate over the family dinner table, and less like the insults thrown by enemies across the barricades.

It’s true. Only history can save the world. Or maybe I’m getting carried away.