A good friend recently gave me a copy of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman. In the introduction, Trueman put words to something that I have thought for a while when he wrote:

“As for the notion of some lost golden age, it is truly very hard for any competent historian to be nostalgic. What past times were better than the present? An ere before antibiotics when childbirth or even minor cuts might lead to septicemia and death? The great days of the nineteenth century when the church was culturally powerful and marriage was between one man and one woman for life but little children worked in factories and swept chimneys? Perhaps the Great Depression? The Second World War? The era of Vietnam? Every age has had its darkness and its dangers. The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them.”

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman

The words of Mordecai to Esther seem appropriate here when he said, “Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this” (Es 4:14).

Rather than be nostalgic for something that never was, we can participate with God in responding correctly to the time in which we find ourselves.

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