I was doing earthquake relief in Tambo de Mora, Peru last week. We had an hour to kill before we saw the mayor, so my team took off to hike to the top of a large hill overlooking the town while I went elsewhere. I returned to see them coming down the hill.

As I took a closer look at the path they were scrambling down, I saw it looked not unlike the ruins of the town all around us. But it was apparently much older. It occurred to me that maybe the hill itself was what was left of some ruins - if so, it was massive, maybe six stories high and half a mile long.

There were no signs to tell us what they were. I asked a local farmer, "What are these hills here?"

"Those are ancient pre-Inca ruins of the Chincha civilization," he replied.

I was amazed at how immense they were and how they sat unexcavated and unappreciated. I yelled up to the team, "Do you know what you're walking on?"

"A big, rocky hill!" They yelled back, oblivious.

And after hearing what it really was, looking at the ruins with new eyes, they were flabbergasted.

Later, I checked it out on the internet. The ruins are nearly a thousand years old. The Chincha worshiped a jaguar god, and believed themselves to be descended from jaguars, who gave them their warlike and dominating tendencies.

It occurred to me that so much of life is like this. In particular, in the evangelical church, we tread over two thousand years of history, largely oblivious to it. Josephus might be rolling in his grave.

Why do we do what we do? Whose footsteps are we walking in as we build our churches and fill them every Sunday? There is an army of critics who sees us like my team climbing the Chincha ruins unaware of what lies under their feet.