Henry Van Dyke, poet, preacher, author, published a beautiful hymn in 1911. It is full of triumphal optimism, an optimism that sounded perfectly normal at that moment in time. Western Christian culture, European and American, had in the previous century, the 19th, seemingly conquered every conceivable challenge, whether in science or philosophy or mechanics or politics. The only way forward was upward.
In 1910 representatives of the major churches and mission organizations in the world had met in Edinburgh to strategize together on how to complete the task of winning the world for Christ in that generation. They genuinely expected to do it.
In Belfast, under the largest gantry ever built they were completing the largest moving object the world had ever seen, a floating palace nearly 1000 feet long and completely unsinkable. The name given to the ship, Titanic, was a perfect expression of the expectations of the day: titanic. But on an April night in 1912, on her maiden voyage, the Titanic happened to brush against a floating mountain of ice and in a matter of hours was lying broken in pieces on the sea floor.
The Titanic’s story is an uncanny parable of what lay ahead for Europe and America. Just as it only took a piece of ice to destroy that great human accomplishment, it only took a bullet from the gun of a Serbian anarchist to destroy the mighty structure of Western Christendom. By 1918, the expectations of what Western humans could do for and to the world were exposed for what they were: gauzy illusions. One only has to compare “Joyful, joyful…” to contemporary Christian songs to see the difference. Today we sing of personal brokenness and societal failure, while hoping that Christ can somehow redeem them.
So should we consign Van Dyke’s vision to the waste basket? By no means! If the world has changed, Christ has not! “Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blest, well spring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!” He is still that, and more. In fact, those words are more poignant now than they were 116 years ago. Then, we were saying, “You can take the training wheels off now, God. We’ve got this.” Now we are forced to say, “No good thing dwells in us, but we know all good things dwell in you and you, against all the odds, want to share them with us! Oh, do!”
Called To Be Transformed 