The Idol of Simpler Times: Nostalgia, Dominion, and the Kingdom of Christ
Memory without mission becomes idolatry
The Yearning for Yesterday
Our age is haunted by its own memories. Everywhere we turn, nostalgia sells. Retro clothes return. Old TV shows are remade. Even politics and religion speak the language of restoration, promising to bring back what was lost: “We just need to get back to how things used to be.” The world clings to the idea that somewhere behind us lies the version of life that worked.
The longing makes sense. People remember a time that felt safer, cleaner, and more certain. Families seemed stronger, communities more stable, and life less chaotic. But that ache is theological. It is not merely cultural sentiment. It is creation groaning for redemption, as Paul writes, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Romans 8:22, LSB). The human heart remembers what peace once felt like and aches for what only Christ can restore.
The problem is where we aim it.
The Theology of Nostalgia
Scripture warns against the temptation to glorify the past. “Do not say, ‘Why is it that the former days were better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10, LSB). The wise man knows that the answer is not behind him. It is ahead.
Abraham “was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10, LSB). His hope was not in recovering Eden but in walking faithfully toward the new creation. Nostalgia, by contrast, turns the longing for God’s kingdom into a yearning for man’s past. It wants the fruit of righteousness without submitting to the King who brings it.
That is why nostalgia becomes idolatry. It promises comfort through memory instead of hope through faith. It makes an idol out of yesterday because it cannot see Christ’s dominion increasing today.
How the Church Imitates the World
Christians are not immune to this disease of memory. We see it whenever the church mourns the loss of “the 1950s family,” “the founding fathers’ faith,” or “the America we used to be.” We imagine that if we could only go back, things would be right again. Holiness isn’t found in the past but in a heart that obeys God today.
Much of the church’s nostalgia is simply the world’s despair expressed in religious language. It mistakes cultural memory for covenant faithfulness. It dreams of the benefits of Christendom while avoiding the work of reformation. Christ’s kingdom is not a museum to be preserved but a kingdom that grows. “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace” (Isaiah 9:7, LSB). To retreat into longing for what was is to deny His promise of what will be.
The Danger of Passive Memory
When memory becomes an idol, it paralyzes action. We preserve relics instead of reforming culture. We talk about what we’ve lost instead of laboring for what we’re called to build.
Biblical remembrance is never passive. God commanded Israel to set up memorial stones in the Jordan (Joshua 4), not to trap them in the past but to point them forward in faith. The stones declared that God had been faithful and therefore would be faithful again. Memory was meant to provoke mission. Covenant memory is about proclamation.
When we romanticize the past, we forget our role in God’s unfolding story. He calls every generation to build on what has been given. Nostalgia tells us to keep the past safe. Faith tells us to take up the tools and keep working.
Dominion and the Duty of Hope
The cure for false nostalgia is covenant hope. The postmillennial vision does not look backward to “the good old days.” It looks forward to the day when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9, LSB). That future comes through labor.
God calls His people to take dominion, to build households, churches, and institutions that will stand for generations. Faithful memory produces builders. The Christian who truly loves history is the one who carries it forward, handing its inheritance to his children.
True remembrance is covenant continuity. It connects the faith of our fathers to the faith of our children. It does not lament over what once was but rather obeys in the present so that the future may rejoice.
Turn Memory into Mission
The temptation toward nostalgia is strongest when the world feels unstable. It offers comfort without calling for repentance. But God calls His people to be courageous. “We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, and His strength and His wondrous deeds that He has done” (Psalm 78:4, LSB).
The church must let remembrance become obedience. We remember so we can act, not so we can hide. Every act of obedience today builds the world our grandchildren will inherit. Despair looks backward. Faith builds forward.
The Christian’s hope is in a stronger kingdom. The King we serve does not retreat. His reign is increasing, His people are maturing, and His promises stand. Nostalgia cannot restore what is lost, but the gospel of Christ will make all things new.