As Christians we believe that man is not a thing; he is not a commodity to be bought and sold, read more

As Christians we believe that man is not a thing; he is not a commodity to be bought and sold, and he is not to be used in an impersonal way. Man, a child of God, is a person with a personal destiny and with eternal value. This Christian belief underlies the democratic principle that the State, first of all, exists for the sake of its citizens; the individual is important... As Christians we also believe that we are made for one another because we are made for God. "Solidarity" is a good word for our essential condition. Beneath all our differences is a unity... This Christian belief underlies a second basic democratic principle, which is, in governing themselves, people of a community -- in a town, a city, a state, a nation -- can, despite inevitable conflicts, press effectively toward the goal of justice and liberty for all.

Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 One hundred read more

Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 One hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

Some relate ... that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun; which if read more

Some relate ... that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun; which if they cannot look steadily on, she rejects them as spurious. We may truly try our faith by immediate intuitions of the Sun of Righteousness. Direct faith to act itself, immediately and directly on the incarnation of Christ and His mediation; and if it be not the right kind and race, it will turn its eyes aside to anything else.

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles Life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy read more

Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles Life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy only where it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society... but rather where it understands itself as being a part of the one, holy, catholic, Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles of the whole Church. Every principle of selection, every separation connected with it that is not necessitated quite objectively by common work, local conditions, or family connections is of the greatest danger to a Christian community. When the way of intellectual or spiritual selection is taken, the human element always insinuates itself and robs the fellowship of its spiritual power and its effectiveness for the Church, and drives it into sectarianism.

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 I too had noticed read more

Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963 I too had noticed that our prayers for others flow more easily than those we offer on our own behalf. And it would be nice to accept your view that this just shows we are made to live by charity. I'm afraid, however, I detect two much less attractive reasons for the ease of my own intercessory prayers. One is that I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him. And the other is like unto it. Suppose I pray that you may be given grace to withstand your besetting sin (short list of candidates for this post will be forwarded on demand). Well, all the work has to be done by God and you. If I pray against my own besetting sin there will be work for me. One sometimes fights shy of admitting an act to be a sin for this very reason.

Anyone can believe that Jesus was a god: what is so hard to credit is that He who hung upon read more

Anyone can believe that Jesus was a god: what is so hard to credit is that He who hung upon the cross was the God. That is what you are asked as Christians to believe. And it is the sword, glittering but fearful. It must cut your life away from the standards of this world, away from its thought and its measures, no less than its aims and hopes. Hard and bitter is the separation, and you will be parted from many great and noble men, some perhaps your own teachers, who can accept about Jesus everything but the one thing needful. The Christian faith, if accepted, drives a wedge between its own adherents and the disciples of every other philosophy or religion, however lofty or soaring. And they will not see this; they will tell you that really your views and theirs are the same thing, and only differ in words, which, if only you were a little more highly trained, you would understand. Even among Christ's nominal servants there are many who think a little good-will is all that is needed to bridge the gulf -- a little amiability and mutual explanation, a more careful use of phrases, would soon accommodate Christianity to fashionable modes of speaking and thinking, and destroy all causes of provocation. So they would. But they would destroy also its one inalienable attraction: that of being... a wonder, and a beauty, and a terror -- no dull and drab system of thought, no mere symbolic idealism.

Common-sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

Common-sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE It belongs to the very nature of the gospel that the read more

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE It belongs to the very nature of the gospel that the Church is built across cultural, social, and racial barriers. There are siren voices (as well as gut reactions) telling Christians that the way to success in evangelism is to follow the natural divisions, and to try to build churches along cultural, social and racial divisions. In doing so, they ignore the "success" in the New Testament in crossing these lines; more importantly, they are in fact stressing success more highly than the truth of the gospel. To buy success at the price of treating the fundamental nature of the gospel as dispensable is to follow a false gospel.

Concluding a short series on prayer: He that seeks God in everything is sure to find God in everything. read more

Concluding a short series on prayer: He that seeks God in everything is sure to find God in everything. When we thus live wholly unto God, God is wholly ours and we are then happy in all the happiness of God; for by uniting with Him in heart, and will, and spirit, we are united to all that He is and has in Himself. This is the purity and perfection of life that we pray for in the Lord's Prayer, that God's kingdom may come and His will be done in us, as it is in Heaven. And this we may be sure is not only necessary, but attainable by us, or our Saviour would not have made it a part of our daily prayer.