“Nostalgia”
This week’s evangelical word is “nostalgia”.
Nostalgia has its positive sides. It can be a good thing to remember good things. However, in many religious, cultural and political circles, nostalgia becomes a value in itself. This is almost always dangerous.
I note that the nostalgic tendency is something that comes naturally to most of us. Just the other day I was heading to the grocery store. I became somewhat nostalgic. What I was remembering was that a year ago this week going to the grocery store meant a good deal of fear, line ups, scarcity of everyday items, etc. Why would I have any sense of nostalgia for a time like that? There is one reason. We often idealize the past and fear the future.
This is how nostalgia can become confused with faith. Nostalgia is not faith. The two get easily confused. When there is a lack of compelling faith, nostalgia steps in to fill the void. Many churches, even some that go all in for up-to-date technology, sound and design, still seem to long for the “good old days”, as if there were a time to which we could go back when people were better, more faithful, of better moral character. There was no such time. Were the 1950’s such a time? Well, not if you want to talk about racism and sexism. How about the 1970’s or 80’s? Maybe the late 1800’s? There are no “good old days” and if we try to get back to an imagined time we wind up hurting other people and ourselves.
You can find some of the downsides of nostalgia even from some of your favourite voices. Rex Murphy is a Canadian writer, television commentator, and newspaper columnist. I remember that I used to find his commentaries quite insightful. Rex is funny and smart. I attended a series of lectures that he presented in Vancouver a number of years ago. It was during those lectures that I realized pretty much everything Rex Murphy had to say could be summed up with one short statement, “Things used to be better”. Once I discerned this I came to understand that most of Rex Murphy’s commentaries did not really have anything useful to say to me.
The statement “things used to be better” does not really help if things did not used to be better. It doesn’t help even if things actually used to be better. Such misguided nostalgia hurts in culture, politics, and religion.
In many evangelical churches there is an idealization of the past. One of the reasons for this is that people have a high regard for the most formative time in their lives. Another reason is that the church was more culturally relevant in the past. If you are a churchgoer ask the older, more nostalgic people in your church what times were the best and they will likely identify how the time when they were younger was the best. They may even make the mistake of assuming that the time was more moral.
Christian faith, at its best, is a faith that looks to the future. History and tradition are important, but they are important within a future-focused faith. If your religious community is longing for the significance of yesterday, they may not have a lot to offer.
In regards to your own life, consider how nostalgia works. Fondly remembering the past can be a gift, but it can also bring pain in the present, and fear of the future. The key in properly placing nostalgia is gratitude. We can be grateful for the past, but still aim for the future. This is one of the blessings of a hopeful theology.
A video I found on YouTube (and did not create) of Vancouver in the 1960’s and 1970’s (includes “Heard it Through the Grapevine” and very many video transitions.)