Living in the Days of Our Ancestors: Doing the Unpopular Thing

Burning the Witches of Salem

Truly we are living in the days of our ancestors where choosing what is good and right is seldom done. We join with our ancestors when we show indifference, or stand to the side, allowing deceiving popularism to determine self rights over human rights.

So then, the question of all questions we must ask ourselves as bible believing Christians is this - "Why is it we always pretend we're Able, and not Cain? The Prophet, and not the one stoning them? Jesus, rather than the Pharisee?"

Very seldom are we the former and usually we are the latter. The scoundrel, the rogue, the charlatan, the thief, the wicked, and false follower of the way, the truth, and the light.

In point of fact, we would have killed the witches of Salem, drowned the baptizing Baptists with their families, stood actively against Black Civil Rights, and participated in the genocide of America's aboriginal tribes.

So why is it when we look at our narrative we always tell ourselves we are the good guys in the story of God's renewal rather than the bad guys which is more likely the case?

Simply, because we always think of ourselves as heroic when the opposite is true.

It is hard to stand up against popularism and speak out. Because it is hard to be courageous though the way of God's love demands it. To embrace the undesirable, be the voice of the oppressed, the giver to the unwanted, the compassionate to the despised.

It takes a rare courage to do what's right and act out love - but no courage at all to stand indifferently to the sidelines actively spectating against the right and the good, the wise and the beautiful.

The bible tells us we are always the Abel, the stoners, the Pharisee, and never the good guy unless we show ourselves to be courageously willing to stand up against fickled popular opinion.

Thus is the way of life to which the bible speaks, Jesus preached, and God's heroes lived and died.

R.E. Slater

February 9, 2017

"What Jesus seems to be suggesting here is that we find ourselves repeating the sins of our ancestors because we have deluded ourselves into imagining that we’re better than them and that “we would not have taken part with them.” Once we convince ourselves that “if we had lived in the days of our ancestors” we would have done better, we make ourselves extremely susceptible to doing exactly as they had done, behaving exactly as they behaved, choosing exactly as they chose." - Fred Clark, The Slacktivist

Matthew 23:29-36

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. 33 You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?[a] 34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.