Christianity’S Effect
Christianity has never been tried, the cliché runs. And of course it’s true, but so is it true that Christianity has checked the movements of millions of men and women who but for the pull of dogma would know no vital brake upon their behavior. Sometimes the brake is effective, sometimes it is not. But that it should be there outweighs any concern over the excesses of Jimmy Swaggart or the ayatollah or the Mormon extremist or the Venezuelan savage—or the European relativist.
—William F. Buckley, Jr., Universal Press Syndicate (Tampa Tribune, Mar. 17, 1989)
Lost Horizon
We’ve lost sight of the fact that some things are always right and some things are always wrong. We’ve lost our reference point. We don’t have any moral philosophy to undergird our way of life in this country, and our way of life is in serious jeopardy and serious danger unless something happens. And that something must be a spiritual revival.
—Billy Graham in a speech at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Founder’s Day (April 4, 1989)
Trivial Squabbles
Any difference [in a marriage] is relatively minor when compared to the fear that love no longer exists.
—Andrew Greeley in Sexual Intimacy: Love and Play
Just Enough Time
Do not be in too great a hurry. There is time for everything that has to be done. He who gave you your life-work has given you just enough time to do it in. The length of life’s candle is measured out according to the length of your required task. You must take necessary time for meditation, for sleep, for food, for the enjoyment of human love and friendship; and even then there will be time enough left for your necessary duties. More haste, less speed! The feverish hand often gives itself additional toil. “He that believeth shall not make haste.”
—F. B. Meyer in Our Daily Walk
Change From Within
Man is both a spiritual and an animal being. One can move a man either by influencing his animal being or by influencing his spiritual essence. In the same way one can change the time on a clock either by moving the hands or by moving the main wheel. And just as it is better to change the time by moving the inner mechanism, so it is better to move a man—whether oneself or another person—by influencing his consciousness.
—Leo Tolstoy in his essay “Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?”
Above It All
Part of our boredom when we read books in which the vision of life seems paltry-minded is our sense that we are not.
—John Gardner in The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
For “Professionals” Only
[Frank] Laubauch states that he started [his] minute-to-minute practicing of God’s presence by “trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half hour.” Most of us would fall far short of doing so once a week. We excuse ourselves by stating we are too busy with our everyday priorities to move toward a more God-centered life. We feel this minute-by-minute approach is a discipline for full-time religious professionals in our midst, but not for us.
—Jim Smoke in Whatever Happened to Ordinary Christians?
