A SHINING LIGHTI am the light of the world, the founder of the Christian religionsaid. What a stupendous phrase! And how particularly marvelous today, whenone is conscious of so much darkness in the world! Let your light shinebefore men, he exhorted us. You know, sometimes … someone asks mewhat I most want, what I should most like to do in the little that remainsof my life, and I always nowadays truthfully answer—and it is truthful—”Ishould like my light to shine, even if only very fitfully, like a match struckin a dark, cavernous night and then flickering out.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge in Jesus Rediscovered
MAKING GOD REAL What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That, to the height of this great argument, I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.
—John Milton in Paradise Lost
YESTERDAY IS NOT TODAY “Today makes yesterday mean” [Emily Dickinson]. … The perspectives ofthe present invariably color the meanings we ascribe to the past. … Inimposing Today’s meanings on Yesterday, we run the risk of distorting it—whetherwillfully, to suit our own purposes, or unintentionally, by unwarrantedassumptions and because of meager information. In this way we lose trackof what might be considered the obverse of Emily Dickinson’s remark: thatYesterday has meanings of its own that are prior to and necessarily independentof Today’s.
—Douglas L. Wilson in the Atlantic Monthly (Nov. 1992)
TECHNOLOGY BREEDS IMPATIENCE A culture obsessed with technology will come to value personal convenienceabove almost all else, and ours does. Among the consequences is impatiencewith anything that interferes with personal convenience. Religion, morality,and law do that, which accounts for the tendency of modern religion to eschewproscriptions and commandments and turn to counseling and therapeutic sermons;of morality to be relativized; and of law, particularly criminal law, tobecome soft and uncertain.
—Robert H. Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah
THE REALITY OF TRUTH [When] I was younger, I tended to believe that certain principles were truebecause they were in the Bible. But year by year, as I have read much ofthe social research, I have come to look at this a new way—that certainprinciples are in the Bible because they are true. They are true and helpfulfor all people, regardless of whether they accept or reject the Bible’s centralclaim.
—Tom Minnery in Focus on the Family Citizen (June 23, 1997)
OUR BEST ASSET Capitalism gets to stride around our society as objective truth. Everybodyfrom Girl Scouts to collectors for the irs agrees that money works.
Why doesn’t God’s love enjoy so high a reputation? It makes more sense thanmoney. God’s love can be freely exchanged; there are no security problemsat ATMs; and God’s love brings more possibilities to everyday than any other assets we have.
—W. J. Sappenfield in the Christian Century (April 23-30, 1997)
TIME AND ETERNITY It is precisely because of the eternity outside time that everything in timebecomes valuable and important and meaningful. Therefore, Christianity … makes it of urgent importance that everything we do here (whetherindividually or as a society) should be rightly related to what we eternallyare. “Eternal life” is the sole sanction for the values of this life.
—Dorothy L. Sayers in Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul
THE STRAIT GATE There are very few who in their hearts do not believe in God, but what theywill not do is give Him exclusive right of way. … They are not readyto promise full allegiance to God alone. Many a professing Christian is astumbling-block because his worship is divided. On Sunday he worships God;on week days God has little or no place in his thoughts.
—Dwight L. Moody in Weighed and Wanting
DON’T PUT IT OFF Repentance is always difficult, and the difficulty grows still greater bydelay.
—Samuel Johnson in The Quotable Johnson
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