IF IT'S CURRENT, it’s cool. Anything old, unless it’s retro, is worth ignoring. C.S. Lewis called that attitude “chronological snobbery.” He defined it as “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.” Such an approach carries two distinct but related dangers: One, as Arthur Lindsley of the C.S. Lewis Institute put it, “we need the help of past ages in order to see our own times more clearly.” And two, we lose the ability to benefit from truths discerned by our predecessors — the wisdom of the ages.
Some classic truths never go out of style, even if they’re routinely ignored in practice. Jesus’ call to “love your neighbor” is as central to our faith and as needed by our world as it was 2,000 years ago. But other old values are seen as out-of-date and irrelevant. When’s the last time you heard a sermon on, say, usury? In the Bible, “usury” means charging interest, and the practice is prohibited, except in regard to foreigners, which is another story. For much of the last two millennia, the church condemned it as well, both because of usury’s extortionary nature but also due to moral questions about using money to make money. “The Christians, on the basis of the Biblical rulings, condemned interest-taking absolutely,” explained historian Paul Johnson, “and from 1179 those who practiced it were excommunicated.” But as the institutional church became richer in the last few centuries — surprise! — it became more open to the collection of interest, and even the word usury evolved. Now it refers to the charging of extraordinary amounts of interest, such as in payday lending, and little is said, in any circles, about the morality of interest itself. But perhaps this old-school ethical principal might be worth another look by Christians and others concerned with economic justice in the here and now.
Other out-of-style values are worth reexamining as well. A good place to begin might be Plato’s “four cardinal virtues”: prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice. (The three “theological virtues” — faith, hope, and love — seem more obviously timely and timeless.) Other “old” values have a complicated history. Modesty, for instance, has been so often weaponized by the Right against women that it’s easy to understand why progressive people of faith approach this virtue with a well-justified hermeneutic of suspicion. But even modesty, and its equally unhip cousin humility, have a place in the code of ethics of those of us seeking to walk the path of discipleship — whether or not our culture deems them “cool.”
I want to close with a word of appreciation. At the end of January, I retired after 42 years with Sojourners (the last 37 working on the magazine), and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities I’ve had over the past four decades to engage in this vocation — and, perhaps most significant, for the profound and rich connections with so many amazing people over the years. For all that, and more, I can only say: Thank you. As usual, the road ahead (this year and beyond) is fraught and dangerous, as it always is. Keep your eyes on the prize, and carry on.
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