Many of the ideas that form the basis of Christianity took generations to develop. I suppose it is true of many of the big ideas that humans embrace as well. It isn’t that an individual somehow wakes up with a new worldview, but rather an idea grows and is transformed as it is passed from generation to generation. There are many times, however, when people will seize an idea without knowing its origin. In Hebrew wisdom literature an argument developed over the nature of time. From one perspective, reflected in many parts of the Bible, time is linear. There is a beginning and there is anticipation that there will be an ending in the future. History progresses from the ancients to today and continues to future generations. But there appears, in biblical literature a kind of minority opinion about that. In the first chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes time is pictured as a circle that returns to where it had previously been. “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down and hurries to the place where it rises.” (Ecclesiastes 1:4-5)

The reality is that the construct of time is very complex and there are truths in both worldviews. Neither completely captures the essence of time. One of the important contributions of biblical literature is its ability to preserve the story of how ideas develop. By reporting multiple points of view, we can see that some of the topics and arguments of our time fit into a larger pattern of evolving ideas.

The chain of thought that is passed from generation to generation, however, is occasionally interrupted. People convince themselves that they have a new idea. They forget that ideas have been circulating for a long time.

Recently, I have been in several different settings of the church where a presenter is talking about some new idea, except I recognize that the idea is not, in fact new. It is something that we discussed and learned decades ago. It can be frustrating to hear a presenter claim that they have a great new idea and then go on and on with concepts that we discussed many years ago. It is even more frustrating that the presenter appears to be unaware that we have previous experience.

I believe that this phenomenon arises in part because the church has, for some time now, been so eager to embrace new generations as a key to its future that we have viewed youth and enthusiasm as more valuable than experience and wisdom. A couple of decades ago I noticed that certain jobs in the conference and national settings of the church were filled by young and energetic persons. They often brought a spark of newness to work that had been going on for a long time. At first it was refreshing. But in the process we lost a bit of institutional memory.

While this was going on, theological education was being revised within the church. We recognized that there could be multiple paths to ordained ministry with the traditional long academic journey being only one way to prepare for service as a minister. Distance education began to replace residential schooling. Individuals were allowed to pursue their education and preparation for ministry distinct from their cohort groups.

And, frankly, as all of this was happening, I was growing older. Somewhere along the line, I found myself shifting from the traditional perspective of linear history into more of the mode of the author of Ecclesiastes. I haven’t quite gotten to “what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) But I have begun to expect less innovation from attending conferences and listening to presenters.

One of the workshops I attended yesterday was especially that way for me. It was billed as a new way of thinking about church programming, but I failed to see any new ideas in the presentation at all. The leader did have some contemporary research and some new statistics, but the trends he was observing have been present in the church for many decades. At one point in the presentation, I asked myself why the presentation seemed so much like things we were doing 20 years ago, and decided that it was in part because that is what our teachers were teaching 40 years ago. Our presenter yesterday, however, seemed to be unaware of the history of the ideas he was touting. He acted like he had just discovered something new. And no doubt those ideas were new for some of the other participants in the event.

“Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See this is new’? It has already been in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.” (Ecclesiastes 1:10-11)

The history of philosophy and theology, however, teach that there is a flaw in my thinking. What I perceive as old ideas being rehashed over and over again is really a process of the evolution of those ideas. Whether or not members of the current generation are aware that their ideas are a part of a process that is bigger than they, those ideas continue to grow and change in each generation. The way we think about the nature of God, the way we talk about the mission of the church, and the way we envision leadership all are ideas that are far too big for a single generation. We wrestle with concepts with which our forebears struggled and in the process we add a small amount of new insight.

My lack of patience with the process may be the result of a kind of urgency that comes with aging. I know that for me the timing is short. I don’t have another 40 years to watch change come slowly within the institutional church. The changes we envisioned will take more time than the span of our lives. The process, however, is moving forward.

So I will read Ecclesiastes from time to time. I will see myself in the words of the book. But I won’t dwell there too long, for there are many other perspectives which must be considered.