Obscuring Reality

As I think about the last 2000 years in the history of the church there are many people and groups that I admire.  I often wish I knew a little more about the early church Fathers because they lived so close to Jesus that I’m inclined to the belief that their faith was more pure.  Untainted.  There are aspects of the lives and teachings of Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin that really hit home for me.  Later I see the deep devotion of the Desert Fathers.  Then, of course, there is Augustine.

I appreciate the devotion, the call to a simple life and authentic faith that can be seen in the Waldensians in France, the Lollards in England and the Moravians in Bohemia.

I’m inspired by the mind of the Reformers and the devotion of the Radical Reformers.

But looking at the history of the church, there is something in each individual or group that, to me, just isn’t quite right.   The Desert Fathers believed that living in normal society would only corrupt the soul.  Augustine believed that infant baptism washed away the stain of original sin. Luther, Calvin and Zwingli all disagreed over the nature of communion, the relationship between the church and the state and various other matters which led to their parting ways, even though they substantially agreed on the nature of the gospel and many other important matters.

In looking at church history as a whole, it appears that in nearly every generation and age, in nearly every expression of what we call “church,” the church has gotten some things right and some things wrong.  Some appear to us to have gotten more right and others more wrong, but there doesn’t appear to be anything approaching an “untainted” church.

Generations from now, what will people look to our time and say that we got right?  What will they say we got wrong?