Knowing our spiritual ancestry puts our sorrows, anxieties and wounds into perspective. Ours is a historical foundation built on the blood of martyrs — Christians willing to live so radically for Jesus they considered it joy to die for Him. Yet I frequently experience Christians leaving contemporary churches in droves because they don’t have a category for pain. They believe they are alone, and that sorrow is unique to them. This is the fruit of a individualistic, self-preoccupied society which has pervaded the Western Church as well as the culture. When people walk away from faith, it’s sometimes because they are ill-equipped to understand the paradoxical tension between the goodness of God and the reality of pain. And this is why Church history matters.
P.S. The dropdown menu at the top of the DailyEdify site allows you to find posts by category. One of those categories is “History.” Don’t be shy about using it.
