HOLD ALL THINGS LIGHTLY
In the judgment of the true Christian, credit and reputation stand on ground not very different from riches. He should not prize them too highly or desire and pursue them with too much concern. However, when the hand of Providence gives them to him, he is to accept them with thankfulness and use them with moderation. He should be able to relinquish them, if it becomes necessary, without murmur.
William Wilberforce in “Real Christianity”
HARD TIMES FOR YANKEE VIRTUES
The Yankee Christian virtues . . . have not been disqualified or proved inadequate; they have simply lost currency, which is to say they are no longer clearly understood and have fallen out of style.
John Gardner in “On Moral Fiction”
EXPERIENCE–NOT LANGUAGE
Christianity is not, and never has been, about finding the right combination of words! It is about encountering the living and loving God.
Alister E. McGrath in “Understanding Doctrine: What It Is”
OUR HUMAN PREDICAMENT
The lives of too many Christians are best described in these lines by the English poet William Wordsworth:
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
We might not capitalize and idolize nature as this early nineteenth-century Romantic did. We might have a more biblical understanding of “the world.” Yet the predicament is the same.
Steven J. Keillor in “Prisoners of Hope”
REAL GREATNESS
Greatness in the kingdom of God is measured in terms of obedience.
John Stott in “Authentic Christianity”
NO HIERARCHY IN DIVERSITY
We would all find more serenity in life if we could . . . be done with comparisons and envy. God made us diverse, and, in God’s eyes at least, our diversity lacks hierarchy. As a friend says in her song “Weave,” God makes of us a “symphony”: different instruments playing in harmony. Each part matters, but only if it’s played according to its calling and isn’t fighting another part for control. We in the church make better music when we treasure our diversity, rather than stifle it.
Thomas L. Ehrich in “Journey”
OVERCOMING SELF
Learn to sabotage every plan your self-nature presents to you. . . . When you are faithful in this way, it is almost as good for your body as it is for your spirit and soul.
Francois Fenelon in“The Seeking Heart”
AMERICA’S SAD NEW DAY
This is for me the moment when the new America began: I was at a graduation ceremony. . . . It was 1971 or 1972. One by one a stream of black-robed students walked across the stage and received their diplomas. And a pretty girl with red hair, big under her graduation gown, walked up to receive hers. The auditorium stood and applauded. I looked at my sister, who sat beside me. “She’s going to have a baby,” she explained.
The girl was eight months pregnant and had had the courage to go through with her pregnancy and take her finals and finish school despite society’s disapproval.
But society wasn’t disapproving. It was applauding. Applause is a right and generous response for a young girl with grit and heart. And yet, in the sound of that applause I heard a wall falling, a thousand-year wall, a wall of sanctions that said: We as a society do not approve of teenaged unwed motherhood because it is not good for the child, not good for the mother, and not good for us.
The old America had a more delicate sense of the difference between the general (“We disapprove”) and the particular (“Let’s go help her”). We had the moral self-confidence to sustain the paradox, to sustain the distance between “official” disapproval and “unofficial” succor. The old America would not have applauded the girl . . . , but some of us individuals would have helped her not only materially but with some measure of emotional support. We don’t so much anymore. For all our tolerance and talk we don’t show much love to what used to be called girls in trouble. As we’ve gotten more open-minded we’ve gotten more closed-hearted.
Message to society: What you applaud, you encourage. Watch out what you celebrate.
Peggy Noonan in“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”
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