Looking at the Past

Both this semester and last spring, I have taken history courses. One of the things that I find incredibly interesting about taking history courses is how we, today, make judgments about things that people did hundreds--even thousands--of years ago. We usually know relatively little of the situation (how much can you know, separated from events by such a large timespan?), and we judge people of the past given the social mores and climate of today. We have a tendency to look at historical figures as universally backwards, cruel, ungodly beasts who were always out to serve themselves (especially in the case of professing Christians), rather than people like us who do things reacting to complex situations and influences.

None of this is to say that I think sin is excuseable. It's not. What God has commanded is what God has commanded, and that is true for all times and in all places for all people. I am not arguing for moral relativism. Rather, I am wondering why it is that we oversimplify situations of the past and view them through the lens of today's society when trying to assess the character of people long dead? I wonder what people will say about me (should I ever achieve any sort of fame, which is both doubtful and relatively undesireable in my case) 100 years from now? What about 500 years from now?

This coming Monday, Hillary Clinton will release a book that will be read by historians for centuries to come, a book on the Clinton presidency (1993-2001). I personally view the Clinton legacy as basically being sex between the Bushes (pun intended), and I imagine that is probably how Clinton will be viewed a long time from now (high school sophomores who were too young to be paying attention in 1998 do know that "I did not have sex with that woman" sex refers to oral sex, and that the phrase is attributed to the former president).

What will future generations say of us? May we try to live to serve God and affect our culture toward godliness. This will make future generations view us favorably, but that isn't even the reason we should do this. We should do this because it is the right thing to do.

Luke