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. 

THE STRENGTHS OF DEMOCRACY

'One of the great things about democracy is that the way is always open for a defeated party to make its case again.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr., Why You're Here, p.243. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY

'Cultivation of diversity can seem inefficient; it is, at least initially, more costly than uniformity in time, effort, and attention. But if we fail to provide places for different people to grow, and to grow together, we will alienate both our own "non-standard" brothers and sisters and also, in the case of churches and other Christian organisations, all those outside our company who might have wanted to join but now see that they would not be welcomed as themselves. Such an attitude fosters a kind of social inbreeding that inevitably results in pathology. God has so arranged the world that we actually need a certain amount of diversity just to avoid going wrong, let alone to help us go more and more right.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr, Why You're Here, p.235. 

GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY OVER SIN

'We trust that the God who specializes in bringing good out of evil will make something beautiful out of our efforts to love God and our neighbors in creation. Indeed, God often brings good out of our failures, and even our sins. For in the aftermath, we sometimes learn humility, and faith, and other vital lessons we would learn no other way.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr., Why You're Here, p.179. 

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 

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY

'If we keep our churches, homes, and bodies bereft of art (or, alas, bereft of good art), we are saying something about what we hold to be Kingdom values - and what we are saying is heretical, namely, that God doesn't care about beauty.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr., Why You're Here, p.99. 

EFFECTIVE EVANGELISM

'...Christians who narrow their understanding and practice of mission to evangelism alone end up being less effective in that evangelism precisely because what they are witnessing to, exemplifying, and acting out is a much-reduced gospel, an important but thin slice of the abundant Kingdom life. Proclamation of the Gospel is an essential of both Christian mission and Christian life, but it is not the totality of either. When it becomes the only mode of Christian service to God, the message being proclaimed becomes less attractive because it is less vital and less evident in those proclaiming it. How do we expect people to be attracted to a society of people who live only to convert other people to their society? We will be better evangelists if we do not concentrate all of our energies on evangelism.' 

John G Stackhouse Jr. Why You're Here p.97.