Rediscovering Our Riches

This is the birthday of American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, author of Christ and Culture, one of my favorite books. I came across this quote from Niebuhr that is particularly helpful for 21^stcentury believers:

“The great Christian revolutions came not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happened when someone takes radically something that was always there.”

Our Christian tradition is so much richer than most of us realize. Faithful men and women through the centuries have found innovative ways to communicate the Gospel by discovering and acting upon truths that were already present. Some of this creativity is certainly the result of the work of the Holy Spirit but it also comes when faithful believers come together to address a common task.

Receptive activists have rediscovered the truths that were always there. Walter Rauschenbusch didn’t discover social justice at the turn of the 20^thcentury; he found it in Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer didn’t come up with the importance of community in a secular world out of thin air; he found it in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters to the New Testament churches. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Desmond Tutu did not invent non-violent resistance; they learned it from the crucified Christ. Richard Foster did not simply sit down one day and discover the spiritual disciplines that bring one closer to God; he studied the lives and practices of Christian saints over the years.

We can be grateful not only for our heritage but for the opportunity to pull it out, clean it up, and introduce its insights and practices to a new generation.

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