[Our] striving after wind is motivated by a sinister desire to be independent of God, free from the frightening vulnerability of His watch-care. If we really do leave the securing of the universe up to Him, there’s no telling what He might pull. When God calls the shots, people turn into prophets, mountains get cast into the sea, and dead men come back to life. Better we should be in control and have some idea of what is coming next. We will keep things on the even keel we so desire. I can’t help but feel that the second coming itself would be an inconvenience for many of us.
—James Sennett in The Wittenburg Door (Aug./Sept. 1986)
Familiar “Miracles”
The electric telegraph, though it be but an invention of man, would have been as hard to believe in a thousand years ago as the resurrection of the dead is now. Who in the days of packhorses would have believed in flashing a message from England to America? Everything is full of wonder till we are used to it, and resurrection owes the incredible portion of its marvel to our never having come across it in our observation—that is all. After the resurrection we shall regard it as a divine display of power as familiar to us as creation and providence now are.
—Charles H. Spurgeon in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (Vol. 18)
A Fuller Life
I hear an almost inaudible but pervasive discontent with the price we pay for our current materialism. And I hear a fluttering of hope that there might be more to life than bread and circuses.
—Bill Moyers, quoted in Vis à Vis (June 1987)
At The Awkward Age
Christians are in an awkward intermediate stage in Western culture: having once been culturally established, they are not yet clearly disestablished. This helps make liberalism attractive, since it keeps people vaguely related to the church. Through translation, we attempt to show that Christians are really interested in what interests “the best” in our culture. We translate Christian eschatological hopes into Marxist revolutionary ones, or we translate salvation into self-fulfillment. Our bishops speak out on “important issues,” showing society that the church cares about the same things society cares about—and in the same way. We keep people interested in the church even though they no longer worship its God.
—William H. Willimon in The Christian Century (Jan. 28, 1987)
Light Is Right, Man
The notion of lite, says a university expert on popular culture, is a trend in American culture. “That is for everybody to be utterly selfish about themselves, for people to want easy cures, easy riches, easy jobs, and easy wealth.”
Well, yes, you might say; Jesus said that his yoke was easy and his burden light. Yeah, no sweat, no effort, easy does it—Christians are on a dreamship to heaven. “Light is right, man, cause Jesus, he said so.” … Not only is the burden light, there is none.
—Henry Fehren in U.S. Catholic (Nov. 1986)
Beyond “Happy”
What is the command associated with being given the desires of our heart? “Delight yourself.” The word for “delight” means to be soft and pliable. We might say be moldable or teachable. It means more than being happy or excited about God.
—Earl D. Wilson in Does God Really Love Me?
A Greater Sacrifice
God does not receive the sacrifice of a person who is in disagreement, but commands him to go back from the altar and first be reconciled to his brother, so that God also may be appeased by the prayers of the peacemaker. Our peace and brotherly agreement is a greater sacrifice to God—and a people united in one in the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
—Cyprian in The Treatise of Cyprian (IV, chap. 23)
Silencing The Foolish
Oh brethren, what abundance of good works are before us, and how few of them do we undertake to do. I know the world expects more of us than we do ourselves, but if we cannot answer the expectations of the unreasonable, let us do what we can to answer the expectations of God, of our own consciences, and of all just men. For it is the will of God that with well-doing we should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
—Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor
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We’ve got little information on Jesus’ appearance and personality. But that’s the way God designed it.españolFrançais
The plan would organize UMC churches in four global regions, with each given more leeway around same-sex marriage and other theological issues.
