CREEDE HINSHAW: Taking our quest for nostalgia back to the good old days of the 1890s

The appeal of nostalgia, seductive and almost irresistible, crops up in many places. From the content of Facebook posts sent my way, nostalgia is rampant. These posts depict old record players, primary school reading books from the ’50s and illustrations of obsolete objects like pencil sharpeners and jukeboxes. There is also a constant drumbeat from boomers imploring schools to teach cursive handwriting.

The problem with nostalgia is that, for it to succeed, one must wear blinders, practice selective memory and suggest that returning to some halcyon former age will solve our ills. Those who so desperately want us to return to cursive must believe it will save our civilization.

The Oklahoma State School Superintendent, smitten by nostalgia (and chasing higher office in a conservative state), recently ordered public school teachers in every grade level and every subject area to include the Bible in their lesson plans. This attention-attracting plan, which may not survive legal challenges, is little more than a fanciful stab at restoring society to some dimly imagined past.

My United Methodist denomination has seen the departure of some its congregations because of the siren song of nostalgia and “normalcy.” In this case these congregations want to return to the “good old days” prior to gay marriage, gay ordination and transgendered persons. Naively nostalgic, these disaffected persons have convinced themselves that the church will again flourish when they forcefully drive gay and lesbian persons and their supporters back into the deepest reaches of the closet.

I would suggest that the problem with these disgruntled Methodists is that, having bought into the nostalgia temptation, they don’t know how far back to draw the line. One wants to ask, “Why have you only rolled back the church 30 to 40 years? Why not make a clean sweep of it with your return to ‘normalcy?’”

If these churches want to return to the happy days of Scriptural obedience, why not return, say, to 1898?

A careful reading of the 1898 Book of Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, indicates Methodists back then knew their Bible! And what did the unchanging Bible tell our 19th-century brethren? This church rulebook said: (1) God only calls males into ministry. No women preachers. This was Biblical! (2) A divorced person could never remarry, adultery being the only exception. This is Biblical! (3) A Methodist pastor, upon threat of expulsion, could not officiate at a wedding of divorcees. This is Biblical! Aaah … the good old days of 1898.

In that same year, Methodist bishops expelled a preacher who held a class in his church on the “art and science of modern dancing,” “reasoning it was contrary to the spirit of the Discipline to practice promiscuous dancing anywhere.” One may chuckle over this now, but it was Biblical. The bishops declared that “dancing, theater-going, card-playing and worldly indulgencies” violated the rules of the church. I hasten to add those rules were based completely on Scripture.

If these churches are going to be Biblical, they’ve stopped too soon. The happy lands of nostalgia require them to turn the clock further back.