HOW READING BREEDS EMPATHY

'One great beauty of literature in its difference from everyday life is that you may be brought to a point of identifying with characters would never get to know in real life because you wouldn't spend nearly as much time with them.'

Matthew Mullins, Enjoying the Bible, p.98.

THOUGHT NEEDS EMOTION

'Thinking without emotion is impoverished thinking.'
Matthew Mullins, Enjoying the Bible, p.71.

THE NEED FOR A LIMITED RANGE OF MEANINGS

'If a work of literature can mean anything to anyone then its's not very meaningful at all. But if a work of literature has a limited range of meaning that cannot be boiled down to a single idea, then it can be meaningful for many readers.'

Matthew Mullins, Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures, p.64.

CHRISTIANITY AS A CIRCLE

'Christianity is not to be considered as a single point or a narrow, repetitive line, but as a circle which provides form but within which there is freedom to move in terms of understanding and expression. Christianity is a circle with definite limits, limits which tend to be like twin cliffs. We find ourselves in danger of falling off on one side or on the other; that is, we have to be careful not to avoid one sort of doctrinal error by backing off into the opposite one.

We must ask God to help us, and we must hep each other, not to fall off the cliffs. There is room for discussion within each circle, but we must not forget that there is a circle to be in.'

Francis A Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p.93.

DOCTRINE MATTERS

'There is no Christian doctrine that does not have a meaning in the existential, moment-by-moment, life. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is affirmed in our Christian lives as we practise the reality, and the importance, or personality at this present moment. This is true both of the practice of personal relationship towards God and towards people.'

Francis A Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p.88.

YOU NEED GOD'S SPIRIT TO BE A BALANCED CHRISTIAN

'...in the flesh we can stress purity without love or we can stress the love of God without purity, but ...in the flesh we cannot stress both simultaneously. In order to exhibit both simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit.'

Francis A Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p.45.

THE POINT OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

'We find that the man-woman relationship of marriage is repeatedly stressed in Scripture as a picture, an illustration, a type, of the wonder of the relationship of individual and Christ and the church of Christ.'

Francis A Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p.39.

CHRISTIAN WORD PLAY

'Historic Christianity and either the old or the new liberal theology are two separate religions with nothing in common except certain terms which they use with totally different meanings.'

Francis A Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p.35.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRESUPPOSITIONS

'The real difference between liberalism and biblical Christianity is not a matter of scholarship but a number of presuppositions. Both the old and new liberalism operate on a set of presuppositions common to both of them, but different from those of historic, orthodox Christianity.'

Francis A Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, p.12.

GOD SCREAMING WITH US

'It makes all the difference to know there's someone else screaming alongside you - and that's the point of the Incarnation...God came into the world and screamed alongside us.'
Susan Howatch, Absolute Truths, p.368.