Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 To me there is a much more read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 To me there is a much more frightening ignorance in our modern world than the "ignorance of the heathen". I am referring to the almost total ignorance of the content and implication of the Christian Faith shown by many "clever" people today. Frankly, I find it horrifying to discover that men who are experts in their own line -- in astronomy, genetics, or nuclear physics, for example -- have no adult knowledge of what the Church of Christ stands for, and a complete blank ignorance of what the Church is achieving today. It is the more horrifying because people who rightly respect the expert for his knowledge in his own field have no idea that he has not carefully examined and reluctantly discarded Christianity; but in all probability he has never studied it at all!

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 To have faith is to rely upon Christ, the Person, read more

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 To have faith is to rely upon Christ, the Person, with the whole heart. It is not the understanding of the mind, not the theological opinion, not creed, not organization, not ritual. It is the koinonia of the whole personality with God and Christ, ... This experience of communion with Christ is itself the continual attitude of dependence on the Saviour which we call faith.

Ash Wednesday The apologetic of the New Testament, and of the early centuries generally, was addressed to men who read more

Ash Wednesday The apologetic of the New Testament, and of the early centuries generally, was addressed to men who had been brought up within one or other of the great pre-Christian religious systems and who had staunchly defended their own inherited traditions against the innovation of the Christian outlook; whereas any apologetic that is to be effective in this country today must be addressed to men who stand within the inheritance of the Christian tradition and know nothing, save by hearsay, of any other, but who have now in varying degrees disengaged themselves from this tradition and whose quarrel with Christianity is therefore undertaken from the point of view either of no religion at all or of some very vague and tenuous residuum of Christian religiosity.

His Christianity was muscular.

His Christianity was muscular.

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the read more

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is really an un-Christian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian, love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what-not: it was the work of love which was his life.

If Christ and His work and His sacrifice do not result in Christlikeness in you and me, then for us read more

If Christ and His work and His sacrifice do not result in Christlikeness in you and me, then for us it is quite valueless, and has entirely failed; and, insofar as you and I are concerned, Christ was thrown away in vain. How, then, is it with you and me? Be very sure that upon Calvary it was no strange, immoral favouritism that came into operation, whereby because of some beliefs that remain mere dead letters, that produce no change whatever in their characters, some people living the same kind of life as others and following the same selfish interests and ends as they, are given a destiny entirely different. That is the vainest of vain dreams. Rather is this the supreme revelation of a new way of living life; and only those who -- blunderingly, it may be, yet honestly -- seek to adopt and imitate it can be counted really Christian folk.

Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536 Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for read more

Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536 Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world. But a blank he cannot be: there are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters.

Devotion is neither more nor less than a prompt, fervent, loving service to God. And the difference between an ordinarily read more

Devotion is neither more nor less than a prompt, fervent, loving service to God. And the difference between an ordinarily good man and one that is devout lies herein, that the first observes God's commands without any special fervour or promptitude; whereas the latter not only keeps them, but does it willingly, earnestly, and resolutely.

There has been a tendency of late to interpret alienation from faith in intellectual rather than experiential terms. Academically oriented read more

There has been a tendency of late to interpret alienation from faith in intellectual rather than experiential terms. Academically oriented Christians especially tend to think that the barriers to faith should be removed by repackaging the content of the message in a way more congenial to the modern outlook. But it is quite possible that we are dealing not so much with a failure of intellect as with an alienation from the experiential roots of Christianity itself so amply attested in the New Testament.