Evangelicalism's Historical Amnesia

When I was 12, I was curious about the origins of our church, so asked my Sunday School teacher where we Baptists came from. He replied, "Why, from John the BAPTIST, of course!"

It was one of the experiences that helped to form me as a Christian and a philosopher, and an early warning signal that I was not cut out to be an American evangelical. 

Evangelicalism’s 50 First Dates

Historical Amnesia in the Tyranny of the Present

Any people that have no memory of their past live the tyranny of the present. When you have rejected the past all you have is the present and all you can do is reinvent yourself every day. Certainly, any spirituality that must succumb to this will eventually burn itself out. Not only is there not enough creativity to keep it interesting, but there’s also no way to test what works and what does not. If you have ever wondered why modern churches must have “new experiences” every week to keep people excited and engaged it is because they are slaves to the present with no grounding in the stuff that makes for stability.

...Christianity is bigger than Evangelicalism. It is bigger than Protestantism. It is bigger than the Roman Catholic Church. It is richer than all of these together. Its wealth is not in gold or properties, it is in the lives of those who have gone before us. What we have forgotten is the rich spiritual tradition that spans across Christian traditions. There is nothing that prevents you, dear soul, from drawing from these wells.

The crushing forces of materialism pour continuously over the Western soul like yards of wet concrete — entombing the unwise. A constant stream of distraction inures the spirit to the still, small Voice of YWHW. The cult of Dionysus engorges the body with pleasures and gratifications, rage and lust. Systems of domination seek to enslave the will until there is no humanity left. What can stand against this army of desolation?

Simple things. Forgotten things. Quiet things. The things that belong to saints and monastics and mystics. Those things are written in The Cloud of Unknowing, by St. John of the Cross. The wisdom of Julian of Norwich, or Hildegaard of Bingen. Things that are hidden in the biography of saints like Francis of Assisi, or the spiritual practices of Edward Pusey. Our armaments exist in the teachings of Thomas Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, or Scupoli’s Spiritual Combat, or John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent. These are names and books that most Evangelicals never hear. Their spirituality is not a part of evangelical memory — or modern Protestant memory ...

https://medium.com/@frmattmirabile/evangelicalisms-50-first-dates-41ee689a6085