day no. 15.815: the progressive element

"Our modern, hasty science is so much like the ancient Athens of Paul's time, 'given over to idols,' spending 'their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing" (Acts 17:21). We are in love with the ugliness of novelty. Yet at the heart of Christian thinking about antithesis is a skepticism of novelty." - Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture

Because the default disposition of modernism is to assume that newer is better, a position which pauses to ask any questions is seen as truculent and intractable. Christianity is not required to be skeptical of new things merely because they are new per se, but it is required to test all things and to keep the good and toss out the bad.

New things are not innocent until proven guilty or guilty until acquitted, they are just things which require Christian discernment to consider whether they are good, bad, or a mixed bag.

The progressive element defines novelty and newness as good by default. All progress is new must be good: part and parcel, warp and woof. Progress is in love with the next step if only because it's the newest one.

But Christianity is not in love with going forward just for the sake of it, but for advancing the Kingdom of God. Because of sin, some steps forward actually attempt to prevent or oppose the advance of the Kingdom.

Christianity is concerned with conserving the old good and embracing the new good without embracing the bad old or new bad. This requires not merely holding on to old good, but to the old way of determining good from bad, which was based on time tested quality and merit, not mere novelty and newness.