Theology in general, instead of acting as a beacon-light to guide the people of God, the laity, as they confront the problems of living for Christ in the world, has for generations been taking refuge in an ever more minute study of Christian origins. Theology is less and less about God and God's world, and more and more a department of ancient history, absorbed in minute details of historical and literary criticism. The whole business is wildly out of proportion.
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Beginning a Lenten series on prayer: If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be read more
Beginning a Lenten series on prayer: If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world: at least, we should be better enabled to bear them.
Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 It is better, safer, truer language to speak of individual depravity read more
Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 It is better, safer, truer language to speak of individual depravity than of universal depravity. By individual depravity, I mean my own. I find it out in myself; or, rather, He who searcheth me and trieth my ways, finds it out in me. That sense of depravity implies the recognition of a law from which I have broken loose, of a Divine image which my character has not resembled. It is the law and the order which are universal. It is this character of Christ which is the true human character. It is easy enough to own to a general depravity; under cover of it, you and I would escape.
He challenged the church to rethink its own mission in the radically secular world of the twentieth century... The nonbelieving read more
He challenged the church to rethink its own mission in the radically secular world of the twentieth century... The nonbelieving brave men he met in the anti-Nazi underground, the stark realities of prison life, and his disappointment in the professional churchmen of Germany, all may have influenced Bonhoeffer to see real Christianity as "non-religious" and "worldly"... The opposition between sacred and secular, supernatural and natural, seemed unreal to him -- the apparent opposites are united in Jesus Christ.
In God, we live every commonplace as well as the most exalted moment of our being. To trust in Him read more
In God, we live every commonplace as well as the most exalted moment of our being. To trust in Him when no need is pressing, when things seem going right of themselves, may be harder than when things seem going wrong.
Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 It may well be that the unknowable name stands read more
Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 It may well be that the unknowable name stands for the ultimate mystery of Jesus Christ. His love we can experience; His salvation we can appropriate; His help we can claim; but their remains in Him the divine mystery of the Incarnation, which is beyond our understanding, and before which we can only worship and adore.
Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 God's Road is all uphill, but do not tire: read more
Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 God's Road is all uphill, but do not tire: Rejoice that we may still keep climbing higher.
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.
Christians in general are far too eager to urge special exceptions when they hear these charges [of corruption in the read more
Christians in general are far too eager to urge special exceptions when they hear these charges [of corruption in the church] preferred; far too ready to make out a case for themselves while they admit their application to others; far too ready to think that the cause of God is interested in the suppression of facts. The prophets should have taught us a different lesson. They should have led us to feel that it was a solemn duty, not to conceal, but to bring forward all the evidence which proves, not that one country is better than another, or one portion of the church better than another, but that there is a principle of decay, a tendency to apostasy in all, and that no comfort can come from merely balancing symptoms of good here against symptoms of evil there, no comfort from considering whether we are a little less contentious, a little less idolatrous than our neighbors.
He is not a good Christian who is not heartily sorry for the faults even of his greatest enemies. And read more
He is not a good Christian who is not heartily sorry for the faults even of his greatest enemies. And if he will be so, he will lay them bare no further than is necessary to some good end.
