Politicians promote and judges embrace previously inconceivable opinions on things like marriage and sexuality while condemning those views that society (and often they themselves) accepted as good and proper just years before; views supporting traditional morality and definitions are declared out-of-bounds and unworthy of consideration.  In entertainment and in our own communities, schools, and homes, behaviors that once brought shame have become cause for celebration, and those that resist this new (im)morality are considered quaint.  

For many the only history that matters begins with their births, so for them any new thing that meets with their or their peers’ approval must be a good thing.  It’s a kind of thinking well-aligned with the persistent promotion of evolution:  if life is always improving and advancing, then humanity itself is also always getting better, and thus what is popular today must always be an improvement over yesterday’s ideas. The urge is ever forward, and the conviction is that change will always put us “on the right side of history”.

What this way of thinking fails to see is that not all forward movement is progress, and not every innovation is an improvement.  A train going full speed on the wrong tracks is getting ahead, but not where it needs to go.  A floodwall that needs to be strengthened against storms is not improved by painting a rainbow on it.  A favorite dish made with different ingredients or an altered recipe will never taste the same.

As Christians we could simply sit back and lament these trends in society, but that would be to miss the warning: this “if it’s new, it’s improved” thinking also affects the church.  Seminary professors eager for acclaim and armchair theologians alike seek and promote “insights” gained by leaving behind God’s revealed truth (and centuries of acceptance by the church) and inventing new doctrines.  Insistently aiming for the memorable or unique, church planters and worship leaders introduce new practices and musical innovations, or seek to mold their message to the world, and assume it always has God’s blessing. 

We know better.  As students of Scripture, we understand that the things that come to us from the world are corrupted by sin, and that the things that come to us from our own hearts and minds are still influenced by the sinful nature. This is not to say that every new way of expressing a doctrine, every new practice or song or instrument, or any change to the established order is necessarily evil or wrong (or that everything old is good or every tradition a blessing) — but we must always recognize the need, with anything new, to “Test everything” so that we may “hold on to the good” and “avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21,22).

The way forward for Christians and churches — to true improvement — is the same as it has always been. When it’s time to either go with the new or stick with the old, we go to God’s Word, and ground every decision in it.  We pray for wisdom, and that his will be done. Then, humbly, we employ the minds God has given us — not just our own, but our brothers’ and sisters’, too — to choose and to use, new or old, what is truly good.