WORLD TRANSFORMING CHRISTIANITY

'We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word and refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world. Willingly they sacrificed fame, fortune and life itself on behalf of a cause they knew to be right. Quantitively small, they were qualitatively giants. Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests. Finally they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ.'

Martin Luther King Jr., 'Transformed Nonconformists' in The Gift of Love, p.16.

THE BLAME GAME

'...if society becomes corrupt (like a dark night or stinking fish), there is no sense in blaming society for its corruption. That is what happens when human evil is unchecked and unrestrained. The question to ask is: where is the church? Where is the salt and light of Jesus?'

John Stott, The Living Church, p.143.

BOTH SIDES IN THE CULTURE WARS ARE CHRISTIAN

'That the great battles in America's culture war were being fought between Christians and those who had emanicipated themselves from Christianity was a conceit that both sides had an interest in promoting. It was no less a myth for that. In reality, Evangelicals and progressives were both recognisably bred of the same matrix. If opponents of abortion were the heirs on Macrina, who had toured the rubbish tips of Cappadocia looking for abandoned infants to rescue then those who argued against them were likewise drawing on a deeply rooted Christian supposition: that every woman's body was her own, and to be respected as such by every man. Supporters of gay marriage were quite as influenced by the Church's enthusiasm for monogamous fidelity as those against it were by biblical condemnations of men who slept with men. To install transgender toilets might indeed seem an affront to the Lord God, who had created male and female; but to refuse kindness to the persecuted was to offend against the most fundamental teaching of Christ. In a country as saturated in Christian assumptions as the United Sates, there could be no escaping their influence - even for those who imagined that they had. America's culture wars were less a war against Christianity than a civil war between Christian factions.' 

Tom Holland, Dominion, p.514.

REJOICE IN WHAT IS GOOD

'We can rejoice, and we ought to rejoice, in goodness discovered anywhere, since all goodness comes from the same fountain.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr., Why You're Here, p.283. 

A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO THE DEATH OF CHRISTENDOM

'...we Christians should be taking the initiative to surrender those privileges that no longer make sense in a post- or semi-Christian society. And we ought to use our shrinking cultural power to establish new relations of religion-society and church-state that will benefit all participants, including religious communities and state institutions, without unjustly penalizing or privileging any. Indeed, we should use what influence we have left to help construct the sort of society in which we ourselves would like to live once our power to effect it has disappeared. And we can be guided in part by our "tribal heritage" of being a minority as the beginning of our religion and in various societies ever since. How unseemly it is for Christians to fight in the courts and legislatures for what remains of the dubious honors and advantages of Christendom! There is no more prudent time to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr., Why You're Here, p.268. 

POLITICAL DECISIONS ARE MADE BY THOSE WHO SHOW UP

'...in the world as God has seemed to ordain it, and from the pages of scriptural history in which God is shown to act politically, it appears that the adage is true: Political decisions are made by those who show up. The monastic movement, important as it was in nurturing Christian piety and promoting evangelism, shaped broader contours of European culture only as monasteries became significant landlords, educators, artistic centers, and advisers to the powerful.' 

John G Stackgouse Jr., Why You're Here, p.177 

WHEN THE CHURCH HAD POWER

'There was a time when the church was very powerful - in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators". But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were a "colony of heaven," called to obey God and not man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it an arch-defender of the status-quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent - and often even vocal - sanction of things as they are.' 

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, p.24. 

THE DANGER OF IDENTITY POLITICS

'The fact is, it's difficult to say where legitimate affirmation of identity ends and encroachment on the rights of others begins. Did I not say that the word identity was a "false friend"? It starts by reflecting a perfectly permissible aspiration, then before we know where we are it has become an instrument of war. The transition from one meaning to the other is imperceptible, almost natural and sometimes we all juts go along with it. We are denouncing injustice, we are defending the rights of a suffering people - then the next day we find ourselves accomplices in a massacre.' 

Amin Maalouf, On Identity, p.28. 

WHEN AN IDENTITY IS PERSECUTED

'People often see themselves in terms of whichever one of their allegiances is most under attack. And sometimes, when a person doesn't have the strength to defend that allegiance, he hides it. Then it remains buried deep in the dark, awaiting its revenge. But whether he accepts or conceals it, proclaims it discreetly or flaunts it, it is with that allegiance that the person concerned identifies. And then, whether it relates to colour, religion, language or class, it invades the person's whole identity. Other people who share the same allegiance sympathise; they all together join forces, encourage one another, challenge "the other side". For them, "asserting their identity" increasingly becomes an act of courage, of liberation. 

In the midst of any community that has been wounded agitators naturally arise. Whether they are hot-heads or cool schemers, their intransigent speeches act as balm to their audience's wounds. They say one shouldn't beg others respect: respect is due and must be forced from those who would withhold it. They promise victory or vengeance, they inflame men's minds, sometimes they use extreme methods that some of their brothers may merely have dreamed of in secret. The scene is now set and war can begin. Whatever happens "the others" will have deserved it. "We" can remember quite clearly "all they have made us suffer" since time immemorial: all the crimes, all the extortion, all the humiliations and fears, complete with names and dates and statistics.' 

Amin Maalouf, On Identity, p.22.

A VISION FOR A CHRISTIAN FUTURE?

'Could it be that the best way to fight the flood is to stop...stop fighting. the flood? That is, to quit piling up sandbags and to build an ark in which to shelter until the water recedes and we can put our feet on dry land again? Rather than wasting energy and resources fighting unwinnable political battles, we should instead work on building communities, institutions, and networks of resistance than can outwit, outlast and eventually overcome the occupation.' 

Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, p.12. 

UNITING CONSERVATIVES & LIBERALS AROUND GOD'S ORDER OF THINGS

'At present "conservative" Christians are often vociferous on issues like abortion and homosexuality while embodying a Western consumer lifestyle and laughing off global warming. Liberal Christians tend to take environmental issues more seriously but are more cautious on "sin" and tend to be pro-choice and in favor of blessing same-sex unions. A recovery of the biblical notion of creation order and its allied motif of the antithesis that runs through the whole of creation would go a long way toward challenging this polarity. God's order applies as much to marriage and sexuality as it does to how we care for the earth. So, just as it is important that Christians hold onto God's order for marriage and sexuality and thus refuse to affirms same-sex relationships as normative, and just as they uphold the sanctity of human life and refuse to condone most practice of abortion, so too Christians must be clear that environmental destruction and Western-style consumerism is downright sin.' 

Craig G Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell, p.312. 

CHURCH & STATE

'The state may tolerate a vague, generic, nonthreatening religion, but there is, as one Revolutionary-era preacher put it, "nothing more obnoxious to an established religion than the gospel of Jesus Christ." In the fullness of time, a spiritually-empowered Caesar will decide that gospel preaching shouldn't happen, if it disturbs the commerce of the silversmiths of Artemis (Acts 19:21-41), and it always does. The kind of religion the state, any state, will support will always be a "God and country" civil religion that supports the agenda of the politicians.'

Russell Moore, Onward, p.149. 

CHURCH & STATE

'A religion that needs state power to enforce obedience to its beliefs is a religion that has lost confidence in the power of its Deity.' 

Russell Moore, Onward, p.145. 

GOVERNMENT

'...government is the family business of God.'
Dave Landrum in Guy Brandon, Votewise 2015: Making a difference at the ballot box and beyond, p.vii. 

HOLINESS & JUSTICE

'The church has been divided between those who cultivate their personal holiness but do nothing about working for justice in the world and those who are passionate for justice but regard personal holiness as an unnecessary distraction from that task. This division has been solidified by the church's unfortunate habit of adopting from our surrounding culture the unhelpful packages of "left-wing" and "right-wing" prejudices, the former speaking of "justice" and meaning "libertarianism" and the latter speaking of "holiness" and meaning "dualism." All this must be firmly pushed to one side. What we need is integration.' 

Tom Wright, Virtue Reborn, p.214. 

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

'I must confess equally boldly that my own solid hopes for the well-being of my country depend, not so much on her navies and armies, nor on the wisdom of her rules, nor on the spirit of her people, as on the persuasion that she still contains many who love and obey the Gospel of Christ. I believe that their prayers may yet prevail.' 

William Wilberforce in Matt Perman, What's Best Next, p.303. 

FEAR

'It resembles nothing so much as the disturbing lack of faith in Christianity that puts the darkest interpretation on social change, religious diversity, foreign influence, the implications of science, and so much else besides. If Christianity expresses the nature and will of God, and if Christ will be with us until the end of the age, why all this fear?'

Marilynne Robinson, 'Wondrous love' in When I Was a Child I Read Books, p.138.

MARRIAGE

'Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question - how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.'

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, p.94. 

CHRISTIANS & SLAVERY

'Historically...both in the early nineteenth century, and again in the 1960s, the force of the shame directed at slave-holders and segregationists was religious. Realistically, it is unlikely that the propagation of Enlightenment views of humanity would have swayed millions of nineteenth-century white Americans against slavery. After all, such moral principles convinced Jefferson and Patrick Henry of the infamy of the institution, but still failed to move them to liberate their own slaves, so what hope was there of persuading less high-minded southerners to make sacrifice of their property, or what Henry described as "inconveniencing" himself? Both in the 1830s and 1840s, and then again in the 1960s, it was the determination of the Rankins and Finneys, and Fannie Lou Hamers, to cross the line between religion and politics and appeal to the country's Christian conscience that brought white Americans into brotherhood with persecuted blacks. For secular humanists (like this writer) this is an awkward historical truth to acknowledge, accustomed as we are to equating evangelical fervour with illiberal reaction. The abolitionist argument that some enormities were so vicious that they had to be made accountable to the principles of the gospel, even if that meant breaching the establishment clause of the First Amendment in the interests of a higher good, is not altogether different from the way Right to Life evangelicals argue today. History sets such snares to make us think harder.'

Simon Schama, The American Future: A History, p.182.

FAITH

'It is often said that mankind needs a faith if the world is to be improved. In fact, unless the faith is vigilantly and regularly checked by a sense of man's fallibility, it is likely to make the world worse. From Torquemada to Robespierre and Hitler the men who have made mankind suffer the most have been inspired to do so by strong faith; so strong that it led them to think their crimes were acts of virtue necessary to help them achieve their aim, which was to build some kind of an ideal kingdom on earth.
But as we have been told on very good authority, the Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world. Those who think they can establish it here are more likely to create a hell on earth.'
Lord David Cecil in Susan Hill, Howards End is on the Landing, p.156.