Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 [In nineteenth-century America] religion became a matter of conduct, of good deeds, of works, with only a vague background of faith. It became highly functional, highly pragmatic; it became a guarantee of success, moral and material. "The proper study of mankind is man," was the evasion by which many American divines escaped the necessity for thought about God.
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We are susceptible to heretical teachings because, in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way that we read more
We are susceptible to heretical teachings because, in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way that we would have it be, rather than the way God has provided, which is infinitely better for us. As they lead us into the blind alleys of self-indulgence and escape from life, heresies pander to the most unworthy tendencies of the human heart.
The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. read more
The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. We have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to pull down.
OUR SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS Often, though not always, they work in inadequate buildings, with limited budgets, with insufficient backing from read more
OUR SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS Often, though not always, they work in inadequate buildings, with limited budgets, with insufficient backing from church officers, with indifferent support from parents, and at times even under a minister who cares for none of these things. Usually the workers themselves have had insufficient training for the job they are asked to perform. And always they work in a secularized culture, in the midst of spiritual illiteracy, where the most commonplace terms in the Bible and the most elemental ideas concerning the Kingdom of God sound strange even to otherwise well-educated adults.
Concluding a series on God and the human condition: Those old Greek gods are not just poetry and legend. read more
Concluding a series on God and the human condition: Those old Greek gods are not just poetry and legend. In them the Ancients personified living realities -- intelligence, beauty, love, or lust, which are still at work in our hearts, and which fashion our persons. The language they speak is that of image and myth, which touches the person much more directly than the explicit language of science and the intellectual dialectic of the modern world. It is also the language of the Bible, of the parables of Christ, which the rationalist of today finds it so difficult to understand, of the Word of God which demands of us not a discussion but a personal decision.
Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles The more vigor you need, the more gentleness and kindness you read more
Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles The more vigor you need, the more gentleness and kindness you must combine with it. All stiff, harsh goodness is contrary to Jesus.
Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear, It is not night read more
Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear, It is not night if Thou be near; O may no earth-born cloud arise To hide Thee from thy servant's eyes.
Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding read more
Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding religion as a compilation of statutes, and not as an internal principle, that it soon comes to be considered as being conversant about external actions rather than about habits of mind. This sentiment sometimes has even the hardiness to insinuate and maintain itself under the guise of extraordinary concern for practical religion; but it soon discovers the falsehood of this pretension, and betrays its real nature. The expedient, indeed, of attaining to superiority in practice by not wasting any of the attention on the internal principles from which alone practice can flow, is about as reasonable, and will answer about as well, as the economy of an architect who should account it mere prodigality to expend any of his materials in laying foundation, from an idea that they might be more usefully applied to the raising of the superstructure. We know what would be the fate of such an edifice.
Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 I belong to the "Great-God Party", and read more
Commemoration of Birinus, Bishop of Dorchester (Oxon), Apostle of Wessex, 650 I belong to the "Great-God Party", and will have nothing to do with the "Little-God Party." Christ does not want nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.
It is to be feared lest our long quarrels about the manner of His presence cause the matter of His read more
It is to be feared lest our long quarrels about the manner of His presence cause the matter of His absence, for our want of charity to receive Him.
