Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the secularists secular education if they on their side will promise not to have moral instruction. Secular education seems to me intellectually clean and comprehensible. Moral instruction seems to me unclean, intolerable; I would destroy it with fire. Teaching the Old Testament by itself means teaching ancient Hebrew ethics, which are simple, barbaric rudimentary, and, to a Christian, unsatisfying. Teaching moral instruction means teaching modern London, Birmingham and Boston ethics, which are not barbaric and rudimentary, but are corrupt, hysterical and crawling with worms, and which are to a Christian, not unsatisfying but detestable. The old Jew who says that you must fight only for your tribe is inadequate; but the modern prig who says you must never fight for anything is substantially and specifically immoral. I know quite well, of course, that the unreligious ethics suggested for modern schools do not verbally assert these things; they only talk about peaceful reform, true Christianity, and the importance of Count Tolstoy. It is all a matter of tone and implication--but then, so is all teaching. Education is implication. It is not the things you say which children respect; when you say things, they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume that really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn.

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spritual writer, 1893 We feel that other churches must accept, as read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spritual writer, 1893 We feel that other churches must accept, as the pre-conditions of fellowship, such changes as will bring them into conformity with ourselves in matters which we regard as essential, and that a failure to insist on this will involve compromise in regard to what is essential to the Church's being. But for precisely the same reason, we cannot admit a demand from others for any changes in ourselves which would seem to imply a denial that we already possess the esse of the Church.

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased read more

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased with a man, and that a man can rejoice in God. Only when grace is recognized to be incomprehensible is it grace. Grace exists, therefore, only where the Resurrection is reflected. Grace is the gift of Christ, who exposes the gulf which separates God and man, and, by exposing it, bridges it.

The possibility of rejection was ever present. St. Paul did not establish himself in a place and go on preaching read more

The possibility of rejection was ever present. St. Paul did not establish himself in a place and go on preaching for years to men who refused to act on his teaching. When once he had brought them to a point where decision was clear, he reminded that they should make their choice. If they rejected him, he rejected them... He did not simply "go away"; he openly rejected those who showed themselves unworthy of his teaching. It was part of the Gospel that men might "judge themselves unworthy of eternal life". It is a question which needs serious consideration whether the Gospel can be truly preached if this element is left out.

Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711 [My father's] common salutation of his family read more

Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711 [My father's] common salutation of his family or friends, on the Lord's day in the morning, was that of the primitive Christians: "The Lord is risen, He is risen indeed"; making it his chief business on that day to celebrate the memory of Christ's resurrection.

If we think that Jesus did not rise, but "lives" and "reigns" only in his memories and imaginations, and is read more

If we think that Jesus did not rise, but "lives" and "reigns" only in his memories and imaginations, and is not actively and objectively "there" in the place of power, irrespective of whether he is acknowledged or not, we should give up hope of our own rising, and of Jesus' public return, and admit that the idea of churches and Christians being sustained by the Spirit-giving energy of a living Lord was never more than a pleasing illusion. And, in that case, we ought frankly to affirm that, though the New Testament is an amazing witness to the religious creativity of the human spirit, its actual message is more wrong than right, more misleading than helpful; and we must reconstruct our gospel accordingly. Only a weak, muddled, or cowardly mind will hesitate to do this.

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 The Christian is the real radical of our read more

Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349 The Christian is the real radical of our generation, for he stands against the monolithic, modern concept of truth as relative. But too often, instead of being the radical, standing against the shifting sands of relativism, he subsides into merely maintaing the status quo. If it is true that evil is evil, that God hates it to the point of the cross, and that there is a moral law fixed in what God is in Himself, then Christians should be the first into the field against what is wrong.

Continuing a short series about the early church: Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; read more

Continuing a short series about the early church: Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If a man has something, he gives freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, Christians take him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don't consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God. And if they hear that one of them is in jail, or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they all give him what he needs -- if it is possible, they bail him out. If one of them is poor and there isn't enough food to go around, they fast several days to give him the food he needs... This is really a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.

Any alleged Christianity which fails to express itself in cheerfulness, at some point, is clearly spurious. The Christian is cheerful, read more

Any alleged Christianity which fails to express itself in cheerfulness, at some point, is clearly spurious. The Christian is cheerful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate.