CHRISTIAN HEALTH & SAFETY

'Identification, rather than obfuscation, of the damage characteristic of indispensable (and sometimes dominically given) Christian practices helps us describe the practices more truthfully, and helps us be on the alert for deformations.'

Lauren F Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice, p.16. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEALS

'The people you eat with are the people you belong to.'
Lauren F Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice, p.15. 

WHAT GOD CAN DO WITH SIN

'A doctrine of sin requires us to acknowledge that our perceptions are faulty - and a doctrine of providence requires us to acknowledge that in the face of sin, God will bring about goods that otherwise would never have existed.' 

Lauren F Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice, p.9. 

WHAT WE HAVE LOST

'God created all things with forms. When created, formed by God, these creatures were perfect - the shape of every creature, whether an ocean or a lion or a human being, was all good, all Godward, all lovely. But in the present era, after the Fall and before the consummation of God's redemption, none of the things God formed is wholly good. We have lost some of our goodness; it has vanished into absence and curvature. We are all still formed as God formed us, but now our forms are distorted and our actions sometimes perverse.'

Lauren F Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice, p.4.  

THE CHARACTERISTC DAMAGES OF CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

'...because nothing created is untouched by the Fall, Christians should not be surprised when lovely and good, potentially gracious Christian gestures are damaged, or when human beings deploy those Christian gestures in the perpetuation of damage. Because often damage is expressed in a way that is not arbitrary, but is proper to what is expressing it, Christians ought to be able to predict some of the characteristic damages that might be found in those potentially gracious gestures, and Christians ought to be able to predict some of the ways in which human beings put those gestures to work in perpetuating damage.' 

Lauren F Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage and Sin, p.3. 

BITE-SIZED SELF-KNOWLEDGE

'I sometimes pray not for self-knowledge in general but for just so much self-knowledge at the moment as I can bear and use at that moment; the little daily dose.' 

CS Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, p.32. 

THE PERFECT CHURCH SERVICE

'The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.' 

CS Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, p2. 

A DECENT EDUCATION

'...for a boy is only sent to be taught at school when it is too late to teach him anything. The real thing has been done already, and thank God it's nearly always done by women.' 

GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p.115. 

THE COMMUNITY AT THE HEART OF THE UNIVERSE

'The heart of humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the idea "it is not good for man to be alone.'"

GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p.99. 

HOW TO CHANGE

'True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you'll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity.' 

James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, p.34. 

FUNCTIONING AS AN EVANGELICAL

'For me, the only way to be a properly functioning evangelical is to keep arguing about what it means to be an evangelical.' 

Richard J Mouw, Restless Faith, p.174.