"If we want future Christians to be merciful to our mistakes -- keeping the best, tossing out our blind spots -- then we need to offer the same mercy to our forefathers in the faith. Protestants have been too quick to write off medieval thinking as hopelessly compromised." - Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture
Because we are in the habit of dismissing our predecessors as primitive while accentuating our modernity as progress, we are setting up our descendants to despise us. We are encouraging them to review our best efforts as uncharitably as we view those of our forefathers. If we do not honor our fathers and mothers, our great grandchildren won't honor us.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
What we hope to pass down will be forgotten and what we hope will be forgotten will be the only thing that is remembered. By rejecting our ancestors, we've taught our children to reject theirs. Our proudest achievements and best contributions will be filed in their history books as our most glaring follies and worst foibles if we do not learn to pass along an heritage of honoring our ancestors as we ourselves honor ours.
"People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.” - Thomas Babington Macaulay
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