We have already noted in these Pages that change is a constant for life in the generations. We can be sure that whatever may be current and important to us today may have changed tomorrow. If it is change in our thought and conduct, and the change is serviceable to mankind, that change is counted as progress. If the change is regressive there may be a stall period in society, or even what may be called social backsliding so that future experience is seen as falling back, losing ground perhaps causing tragedy for masses of the population. It is common belief that the Greeks and the Romans in the West moved forward from about 500 BC to the period just before the birth of Christ. It incorporated in that century what is known as the Golden Age of Rome. There occurred stall and decay, but some recovery with what is called the Silver Age of Rome in the period of ministry of Jesus and the Disciples. That period is not identified with the Christian influence except to note that the secular decay partly related to the persecution of Christians and the church. The church ultimately emerged, wounded in some ways by the culture, but with the ability to preserve and foster an order of society in monasticism, and public life as guided by the church. The losses that had occurred for the Greeks and the Romans were taken as warnings about change. There emerged a strong influence to hold to tradition, and to a large degree resist change. The Far East did settle in with a long period that stifled change. Change had not seemed to serve mankind well. It had not because so many of the changes were regressive. Mighty Rome had been overcome by hairy Mongols, and the Mongols didn’t know what to do with the conquered Empire. After more than a thousand years the change became a Renaissance (return, revival, reformation, recovery) when leading persons turned back to the glory days of Greece and Rome for ideas and commitment, so to build upon an intellectual and artistic vision that had been lost to change. Even the church caught the wave in the Reformation, so to return to the guidance of Scripture and Christian thought/conduct espoused by Apostles after the resurrection of Jesus.
The problem of Renaissance is that it has been diluted, sometimes sabotaged, by the baggage it carries from the regressive periods. The progressive is confounded by the regressive. Righteousness (right) and Sin (wrong) must live together in mankind’s tour of earth. Mankind doesn’t handle the tour well. The future may be more difficult than in the past and that for several reasons. One of those reasons is the speed-up of change. Human beings tend to demand change in shorter time slots and manage it poorly, or put much of it in frivolous contexts, or in trying to combine it with odd spiritual concepts so end up with a hodge-podge, of conflicts in theories, divisions rather than unity, and faltering faiths and cultures.
The whole matter is further made difficult in that technology, massive world population, depleted resources, growing conflicts about faith, morality and values, and changing global nature seem to be overcoming the spiritual side of human beings. On the horizon looms a period of dark ages. Persons of science are working hard at finding another planet for human escape, or as a mine for resources. Prognosticators are arguing about the number of decades remaining for advancing society, or even if there will be a society to rescue. Mankind, easily bored, looks for something new. That means change. The resources given to change are often wasted in that they are not important to life, but the insatiable appetite of our psyche, distracts us from problem solving. Unbelievable is the faith that any marvels of human discovery, science, and genius will be great enough to forestall new mongols on the horizon. Humanists ask questions beginning with: When to gain change – not If, but When. Our concern for assistance here relates to progress (growth) – not for change for change’s sake. The confusion, the fear, the declensions will all provide excellent motivation for sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Acknowledging future threat, the Christian ought to prepare to live in that Gospel providing hope, rescue, victory, restoration and love beyond current mortality. Christians ought to assist those of their generation to find the loving provision of God in the redemptive work of Christ – unchanging. It is important that inevitable change in Christian parlance must mean righteous (right) growth so to advance human context. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020