“You don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.”
I majored in history when I was in college (I tell our grandchildren it was easy because then there was a lot less of it to learn). Maybe that’s the reason my ears perk up a bit whenever I hear someone say the above. It’s a statement that deserves closer examination since it is always said as part of an attempt to get people to change their mind about something.
The first thing worth noting is there’s nothing evidential in the statement. It doesn’t contribute one iota to determining the truth or falsehood of whatever issue in question. That is significant.
The statement is rather a subtle form of peer pressure. It says that history (i.e., the people who will chronicle this issue for posterity), will not see things as you do. In today’s vernacular—they will write a different narrative than the one you’re supporting. Consequently, future generations will see you as a mistaken, misguided, and unenlightened scoundrel (more or less). They will remove your statue, take your name off buildings, and purge your writings. Your descendants will be embarrassed by you more than your teenaged children ever were. Fortunately, you will be dead, so you won’t have to experience any of this.
The presupposition underlying this statement is that history is always moving forward in moral, ethical, and spiritual terms. Therefore, whatever we’re doing today is by definition superior to what people were doing 100 years ago. The logic goes something like this:
- 100 years from now, X is what most people will regard as right.
- If most people think it’s right, then it must be.
- You don’t want to be on the wrong side of what most people will think is right in 100 years.
It doesn’t take a genius to see this is not a great argument. I wonder if someone whispered in Pilate’s ear when he was trying to decide whether to crucify Jesus that he didn’t want to be on the wrong side of history. Or maybe when Hitler was coming to power, this was the argument employed to get the people of Germany to support his regime. If so, his supporters certainly didn’t end up on the right side of history.
The simple but penetrating truth is that what is packaged and promoted as progress isn’t always progress. History is crystal clear on that. It’s remarkably hubristic to think we have somehow arrived at such a state of advanced enlightenment that we are willing to do what no previous civilization has dreamed of doing and change the definition or marriage and declare the binary nature of gender erroneous. Yet we have done both of these things in less than a decade.
The only question we need to be concerned with is, “What is true, right, and good?” For disciple’s the standard will always be God’s unchanging word, not the shifting, easily manipulated popular opinion. There’s a reason why when the Hebrews writer spoke of men and women of enduring and triumphant faith, he said, “The world was not worthy of them” (11:38). They didn’t care about being on the right side of history, just the right side of His story.
What do you care about?
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 