Are you progressive or conservative? It seems like a simple enough question, but let me complicate it for you. The terms are both tethered to time. The term progressive looks forward. Progressives believe that the best is yet to come. We are growing, evolving and our policies ought to reflect our progressive enlightenment. Conservatives, on the other hand, preserve that which is good from the past. It is our job to aspire to and embody the charter set forth by our founding fathers.
Our politics have forced us to two sides of ring: those looking back and those looking forward. These totalizing lenses have robbed us of a fully orbed biblical ethical vision that directs our eyes forward, and backward, and straight down. And, above all, a biblical ethic casts our vision on a person.
Drawing inspiration from the letter to the Hebrews, let’s consider how we are to look:
Backward
As Christians, we are to look backward. God reminds the Jews again and again to remember. They were to set up cairns (stone monuments) in remembrance, their holidays were moments to recreate their history, and they were to recite their history to their children. In Hebrews 11, the author looks back at the history of faith among God’s people for encouragement and inspiration. He reminds us that by faith, “the people of old received their commendation” (Heb 11:2), and that these remembered faithful ones are those “of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb 11:38).
CS Lewis famously called our predisposition to disregard the wisdom of those who have come before as “chronological snobbery.” We would do well to heed the encouragement of the author of Hebrews and Lewis and not disregard those who have come before.
Forward
As Christians, we are to look forward. We are told that Abraham “was looking forward,” (Heb 11:10), and urged to do likewise. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb 12:1).
The best is not behind us, it lies ahead. We celebrate that we are those who live after Jesus, the incarnate Son of God has come and shown us the fullness of God in flesh. We rejoice that the Spirit of God has now come and indwells those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ. And we look forward to the second coming of Jesus, who will judge “the living and the dead” (2 Tim 4:1). For the Christian, the ultimate “good days,” lie ahead in glory, not in the past.
Straight Down
The Christian is also to pay attention to the day we live in. Every day is the day we are called to, a day that is lived in light of the past that God has graciously brought us through, and in expectation of the immanent return of Jesus.
The author of Hebrews urges us to attend to today. He says, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Heb 3:12-14). The sobering echo of today causes a pause for internal reflection.
Progressives and conservatives alike fall prey to finding their enemy in the other. Progressives fight those held captive by the past. Conservatives attack those who dump the past.
Who do those who follow Christ go after? The evil within. We recognize that our enemy is not “flesh and blood” (Eph 6:12), but “the spiritual forces of evil” (Eph 6:12), and our battle begins not with the other, but with our own “unbelieving heart” (Heb 3:12). That battle is a daily battle. Attend to today.
At a Person
Whether looking forward, backward, or to today, as Christians are eyes to be trained first and foremost on our Lord and Savior.
Let’s return to Hebrews 12, where we find all four perspectives joined. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run [today] with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
We are to look to the saints that have come before, the great cloud of witnesses. We are to battle sin in our flesh today and look forward to the finish line. And who is that finish line? Jesus himself, who has come before us, stands with us today, and stands in front of us. He is our hope.
Looking to America
As the hymn says, these spiritual eyes ought to make “the things of this world look strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” This is true. But it goes further. These spiritual eyes retrain our political eyes as well.
We ought to be those who politically are able to look backward, forward, to the present, and to Christ.
Larry Arnn said, “To present young people with a full and honest account of our nation’s history is to invest them with the spirit of freedom. It is to teach them something more than why our country deserves their love, although that is good in itself. It is to teach them that the people in the past, even the great ones, were human and had to struggle. And by teaching them that, we prepare them to struggle with the problems and evils in and around them. Teaching them instead that the past was simply wicked and that now they are able to see so perfectly the right, we do them a disservice and fit them to be slavish, incapable of developing sympathy for others or undergoing trials on their own.”
Christians shouldn’t be afraid of a “full and honest account.” We shouldn’t shy away from the truth, however ugly it is. And we shouldn’t be afraid to find moments to celebrate and inspire. Most of all, we should remember that the Lord is our Savior, and our citizenship is ultimately with his Kingdom, which has come and is coming.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus, come.
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