Warning Against Chronological Snobbery

C.S. Lewis has been credited with coining the phrase "chronological snobbery." Dr. Art Lindsley, a Senior Fellow of the C.S. Lewis Institute, writes:

One of the often-heard objections to faith in Christ is that it is old fashioned or outmoded, a relic of the distant past and therefore easily discarded. After all, what could a two-thousand-year-old faith have to say to us in the twenty-first century?

This was one of the obstacles that C.S. Lewis had to overcome in order to come to faith in Christ. He dubs the problem as one of “chronological snobbery.” His friend Owen Barfield often argued with him on this issue. Lewis’s question was: How could this ancient religion be relevant to my present setting? Lewis defines this chronological snobbery as “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.”

(Quoted from C.S. Lewis on Chronological Snobbery)

Here's a lighthearted look at the problem of chronological snobbery:


(HT: Tim Challies)