Over against the contemporary emphasis upon “being in the moment” and living within the “Eternal Now,” Christians are to be a people marked by remembrance and expectation.
The most definitive stages of history are the past and the future. The past is definitive because of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the out-pouring of the eschatological Spirit; and the future is (even more) definitive because it is in the future that all of history will be consummated and all creation will be made new.
This is not to say that Christian avoid the present through cheap sentimentality or utopian dreams. What is does mean is that Christians live within the present very much shaped by the past and the future — we do what we do now because we remember and we expect.
People with no memory or hope are trapped within the “Eternal Now” where they are unsure about what to do, or why they do what they do.
Slowly I am learning how to live with memory and hope. I firmly believe that understanding ourselves historically is essential to living transformatively.