RELIGION —
“You don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.”
I majored in history when I was in college (I tell our grandchildren it was easy because there was a lot less of it to learn back then.). Maybe that’s the reason my ears perk up a bit whenever I hear someone say the above. It’s a statement that deserves closer examination since it is always said as part of an attempt to get people to change their mind about something.
The first thing worth noting is there’s nothing evidential about this statement. It doesn’t contribute one iota to determining the truth or falsehood of whatever issue is in question. That is significant.
The statement is rather a not-so-subtle form of peer pressure. It says that history (i.e., the people who will chronicle this issue for posterity), will not see things as you do. In today’s vernacular — they will write a different narrative than the one you’re supporting. Consequently, future generations will see you as a mistaken, misguided and an unenlightened scoundrel (more or less). They will remove your statue, take your name off buildings and purge your writings. Your descendants will be embarrassed by you more than your teenage children ever were. Fortunately, you will be dead, so you won’t have to experience any of this.
The presupposition underlying this statement is that history is always moving forward in moral, ethical and spiritual terms. Therefore, whatever we’re doing today is by definition superior to what people were doing 100 years ago. The logic goes something like this:
• 100 years from now, X is what most people will regard as right.
• If most people think X is right, then it must be.
• You don’t want to be on the wrong side of what most people will think is right in 100 years.
It doesn’t take a genius to see this is not a great argument. I wonder if someone whispered it in Pilate’s ear when he was trying to decide whether to crucify Jesus. Or maybe when Hitler was coming to power, the people of Germany were told to support his regime because they didn’t want to end up on the wrong side of history. If so, it didn’t work out well for them or for anyone else for that matter.
The simple but penetrating truth is that what is packaged and promoted as progress isn’t always progress. History is crystal clear on that. It’s remarkably hubristic to think we have somehow arrived at such a state of advanced enlightenment that we are willing to do what no previous civilization has dreamed of doing and change the definition or marriage as well as declare the binary nature of gender erroneous. Yet we have done both of these things in the past decade.
The only question we should be concerned with is, “What is true, right and good?” For disciples, the standard will always be God’s unchanging word, not the shifting, easily manipulated entity known as popular opinion. There’s a reason why when the Hebrews writer spoke of certain men and women possessing an enduring and triumphant faith, he said, “The world was not worthy of them” (11:38). They didn’t care about being on the right side of history, just the right side of His story.
What do you care about?
You can find more of Green’s writings at his website: a-taste-of-grace-with-bruce-green.com