Embellishment

Embellishment
 
    In his 1931 Presidential Address to the American Historical Association, historian Carl Becker suggested a definition of history as "a foreshortened and incomplete representation of the reality that once was."  To an extent his point was that no historical record is likely to include every detail, nor would such a record be necessarily useful -- we need not have the name of Churchill's tobacconist to know he smoked cigars.  However, Professor Becker went beyond this, adding in the same sentence that history may legitimately include "an unstable pattern of remembered things redesigned and newly colored to suit the convenience of those who make use of it."
 
    Recently my wife and I enjoyed a pleasant evening with friends screening a film which purported to recount the history of an English political leader who was compelled by his Christian convictions to campaign against a monstrous injustice.  Because of its Christian theme, the film had achieved significant success not only in its theatrical release but among the Christian community as well, and has in fact been shown in over 5,000 churches.  Beautifully photographed, well casted, the film might have been very satisfying had it been presented as fiction; unfortunately, though offered as history, the story had, to use Becker's words, been "redesigned and newly colored to suit the convenience of" the producers.  Numerous details, some small, some of great significance, had been altered, added or removed, presumably to enhance the dramatic appeal of the story; in the process, history and fiction became so mingled as to become indistinguishable.
 
    Embellishment is "To make more beautiful and attractive; to decorate; To make something sound or look better or more acceptable than it is in reality, to distort," according to one dictionary, and it is that last phrase, "to distort," which reveals the true nature of the practice.  Embellishment is nothing new; even before partaking of the forbidden fruit, Eve embellished God's command [Genesis 3:3], adding to it in a way which might have seemed quite innocent but which in fact opened the door to further distortions.  In the case of the film we watched, as in every "docudrama," the introduction of seemingly innocent falsehoods, embellishments, may have made the story more interesting but diluted and thus tarnished the truth.  The danger, of course, is that just as pure water mixed with mud is no longer pure, truth mixed with falsehood is no longer true.
 
    The Church has long struggled with our human tendency toward embellishment.  Virtually every heresy has arisen from "additions" to the truth of God's Word.  Roman Catholocism is deeply mired in "traditions" which may once have been such embellishments but have grown in many aspects to supersede the Holy Scriptures.  But the Reformed community is not immune to the temptations which have ensnared the Church in the past.  Many of these come before us as "improvements" to worship, careless and perhaps even well-meant disobedience of the Second Commandment's prohibition against worshipping God "in any other manner than He has commanded in His Word." [Catechism Answer 96]  These  temptations often arise in our music, where, amidst what may well be good theology, an extrabiblical or even decidedly unbiblical phrase is woven into a popular hymn.  Perhaps the most insidious and dangerous of these embellishments, however, are those which appear in materials used to teach our children.  Pastors and Elders spend countless hours evaluating Catechism and, in some churches, Sunday School curricula, much of which is tainted by error, the Gospel "redesigned and newly colored to suit the convenience of those who make use of it."  I well recall a conversation some years ago with a widow in her seventies whose faith was shaken by an error she had believed since childhood, learned at the knee of a well-meaning but misinformed Sunday School teacher.
 
    In many churches, committees are now preparing for summer missions activities, often including Vacation Bible School programs.  Sadly, most of the published VBS materials available today, including some promoted by publishers associated with the Reformed churches, are filled with such embellishments.  The intention, as in the film we saw, is presumably to make the story more engaging and appealing, but adding to the truth actually detracts from it.  We must be diligent, in our own reading and entertainment but especially in that of our children, to reject and flee from that which conflicts with God's Word.
 
"For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book." [Revelation 22:18]
 
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Gary Fisher