When we wonder why the language of traditional Christianity has lost its liberating power for [modern] man, we have to realize that most Christian preaching is still based on the presupposition that man sees himself as meaningfully integrated with a history in which God came to us in the past, is living under us in the present, and will come to liberate us in the future. But when man's historical consciousness is broken, the whole Christian message seems like a lecture about the great pioneers to a boy on an acid trip.
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer
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that is profound. our collective historical amnesia seems to affect us even to the point of our own family history. i don't even know the names of my great grandparents or what they did. and this seems to be a profound shame in that we even limit history to what involves our race directly. canadian and american history "begins" when the settlers came over to from europe to colonize and christianize... we wont look back 2 generations or even beyond 300 years, how are we supposed to care about what happened 2000 years agon, much less at the beginning of time? good thoughts nouwen. what an acid trip...
one of the things that has struck me most about my time at regent is their desire to be a church of today (tomorrow?) that lives very much in light of its past. growing up in a Baptist church there was an assumed mentality (though never verbalized) that our church began at the reformation... and even still we never really mentioned much before the 20th century. i've thoroughly enjoyed digging deep into the archives of our collective history and understanding deeper whose footsteps we follow...
i just can't get over henri's insight... i would've loved to sit across the table from him for just an hour to let some of him rub off on me...
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