Holding to the heritage

Blogging from the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators in Philadelphia:

The theme for this year's conference involves flying forward and looking back. And so the opening evening focussed on looking back.

Our preacher, the Rev. Bill Carter of Clark's Summit, PA, opened with a service celebrating the counter cultural attitude biblical faith takes toward the past.

When it comes to making progress, the cultural expectation is to look to the future. Any thought of the past is dismissed with the thought that itÂ’s water over the dam, or under the bridge, or something.

But the Bible takes a rather different opinion. Places like Psalm 78 stress the importance of holding to the past, not dismissing it. The mighty works and wise commands of God are things each generation is to teach the next "so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God." (Psalm 78:6,7, NIV)

The culture tries to get over the past so it can move beyond it into a new future. But the historic Christian faith has seen the past, not as something to be put behind us or something to be gotten over, but as the foundation for whatever is to come. A faithful future will not come in opposition to our past, but in continuity with it.

The importance of memory in finding a faithful future makes the work of the teacher crucial. The teachers must remember the stories accurately. Then they must take the lead to show the community how to pass these stories along to the children.

It is always a temptation for each generation to think it have finally resolved the great questions and figured out the mysteries, and there are only greater heights ahead. But that is a temptation. People who don't keep a good grip on their memories and heritage are like characters in Chuck Jones cartoons who do things like stand in midair wondering where the building around them went. Eventually they figure it out and plunge to earth.