Diana Butler Bass, the author of A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story, wrote an interesting piece about Christians losing/forgetting/never knowing the history of their faith (and the dangers therein).

“Thus we inhabit a post-traditional world—a world of broken memory—in which some tell history badly, others do not know it at all, and still others use history to manipulate people to their own ends…

To paraphrase, history is to a religion (or a denomination, church, or faith community) what memory is to an individual. To lose memory is neither funny nor sad; rather, it is a path to profound brokenness, a loss of self, meaning, and God that leaves us in darkness unable to act in purposeful ways in the world. Thus, I wonder: Is spiritual amnesia a precursor to religious Alzheimer’s, a fatal loss of memory for which there is no cure? I hope not.”