Who do We Think We are?

In 2004, a TV series titled “Who Do You Think You Are?” first appeared on British television screens. The TV show starts with a famous figure outlining the limited knowledge the family circle has about those of earlier generations and the famous figure outlines possible avenues of enquiry that they want the TV programme to explore. Often the results are surprising. Sometimes ancestors are shown to have been squanderers or criminals. On other occasions previously unknown parental heroism and suffering has been revealed. Occasionally filming has been abandoned where ancestral research has not revealed anything out of the ordinary. The TV show title could be adapted to “Who Do We Think We Are?” to investigate the church family.

A 1975 Peanuts cartoon shows Sally writing a paper on church history. She states “When writing about church history, we have to go back to the very beginning. Our pastor was born in 1930.” Charlie Brown rolls his eyes on hearing this. To a child, someone in their 40s can seem rather ancient but adults too be can caught up with the here-and-now with their interest in church history focusing on their particular congregation rather than the distant historical reaches of the church.

Some Christians are prepared to consider the bigger picture. Yes, the true church existed during the apostolic era and shortly thereafter but then Catholicism extinguished it until its resurrection during the reformation. The Seventeenth Century Anglican theologian Mark Frank addressed this “And indeed in itself it is most ridiculous to think the custom, and practice, and order, and interpretations of all times and Churches should be false, and those of yesterday only true, unless we can think the Spirit of Truth has been fifteen or sixteen hundred years asleep, and never waked till now of late; or can imagine that Christ should found a Church, and promise to be with it to the end of the world, and then leave it presently to Antichrist to be guided by him for above fifteen hundred years together.” So likewise a view that dismisses three quarters of church history contradicts Christ’s promise to always be with the church (Matthew 28:20).

Let us be clear, church history incorporates much more than the history of our particular local church. There are benefits in knowing the circumstances how our assembly of Christian believers came into existence and the struggles and blessings it has known. However, when we ignore the history of the universal church there is much of value that we are missing. We need to see beyond the historical myopia we impose on ourselves with such thinking. It's good to remember that we are part of God's family and God has never deserted the Church.