This Is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel

by Trevin K. Wax

We can’t fall for the myth of decline, as if there were a golden age in the past that we are to find and be faithful to. Church history is a treasure box, not a map. As Christians, we do not honor our forefathers and mothers by seeking to return to their times; rather, we honor them by receiving their wisdom and learning from their victories and failures. We retrieve from the past the elements and tools needed for faithfulness today. No golden age of Christianity existed in the past, only an unbroken line of broken sinners saved by the grace of God and empowered to transmit the gospel to the next generation. The world wobbles, and this truth cuts against both the myth of progress and the myth of decline. In charge of this wobbly world is the King of kings, which is why we must understand the story line of the world as explained in the gospel and embodied in the church, not the story as our society conceives of it today.