June 1, 2015
I have met many a person who has written off my Church because they think it narrow-thinking, reluctant to embrace new ideas, and generally ill-suited for the modern world. I was reading a daily reflection book and was reminded that this same Church invented universities and supported them, preserved works of Greek and Roman non-believers, built schools that served the poor gratis, commissioned great artists, and built Europe into a garden of grain and fruit. No doubt there are many a narrow-minded leader in my Church, but overall we have a history of progress and preservation of wisdom. I have seen people who walk away from recovery programs, social clubs, neighborhood associations and the like simply because of a bad experience with someone. Why let the people who are narrow-minded control your decisions? No group is perfect. No city has perfect weather. But if something has been around for a few millennium, it might be doing something right. Time tells.