There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors...
We do not forgive hurricanes and floods; we forgive human beings who could and should have acted differently. We hold them responsible, and we hold them under the judgment of memory, especially so long as the perpetrators do not repent their actions. Even after they...
In the beginning, the church was a fellowship of men and women who centered their lives on the living Christ. They had a personal relationship with the Lord. It transformed them and the world around them. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy....
This internal dying or death has two closely related dimensions of meaning. On the one hand, it is a dying of the self as the center of its own concern. On the other hand, it is a dying to the world as the center of security and identity. These—the self and the...
Contrary to the conventions of our thinly moralistic culture, this emphasis on gladness and selfhood is not selfish. The Quaker teacher Douglas Steere was fond of saying that the ancient human question “Who am I?” leads inevitably to the equally important question...
We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster like the death of a friend or spouse or loss of a marriage or job, we usually will not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the great language of...
I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.
And all hands are needed to save this sinking ship. Let Christians not quibble about commitments to Christ. Let all those who want to keep civilization civilized—put quality into culture, humanity into business life, life into the millions who are now drifting—let...
It may sound easy to “allow the Spirit to guide us” while reading the Bible…but in a culture of consumerized Christianity it is also easy to stumble over preconceived notions about the Bible cluttering the path. Chief among such market-driven notions is that the Bible...
We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. …To become aware of God’s presence in our lives, we have to...