Continuing a short series on education: It is ironic that, although fundamentalists are implacably opposed to liberalism, their read more

Continuing a short series on education: It is ironic that, although fundamentalists are implacably opposed to liberalism, their extreme reaction shows the same weakness. They, too, stress the leap of faith and make irrationality almost a principle, dismissing the serious questions of seeking modern men as intellectual smoke-screens or diversions to conceal deeper personal problems. All this masks a desperate intellectual insecurity, barely disguised by the surrounding hedge of taboos to preserve purity. The strident intolerance of much guilt-driven evangelism betrays the same insecurity. In these circles, much that is taught has to be unlearned in the wider school of life, and it is not surprising that universities are littered with dropouts from such groups. Their non-rational, subjective faith is cruelly punctured by varsity-level questions, and many manage to survive only by resorting to a severely schizophrenic faith which they hold to be true religiously but not intellectually, historically, or scientifically.

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 Beginning a series on the church: The laity... living in read more

Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107 Beginning a series on the church: The laity... living in the world as an integral part of it, is the primary body through which the reality of the phrase "the Church is service" has to be manifested in all spheres of secular life: the Church has to show in her own life and attitude towards others the evidences of the redemptive order which is in Christ an operative fact: Christ the Lord is also Christ the servant: the Church which is the lord of all life is also the servant of all life, and the lordship is shown only through the service. The world wants to see redemption: it is not interested in being talked to about it. A church which is not outward looking... has ceased to be a church as the Body of Christ and has instead become a club for the benefit of its members.

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: Break Thou read more

Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642 Continuing a short series of verse on Christ: Break Thou the bread of life, Dear Lord, to me, As Thou didst break the loaves Beside the sea; Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord; My spirit pants for Thee, O living word! Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord, To me, to me, As Thou didst bless the bread By Galilee; Then shall all bondage cease, All fetters fall; And I shall find my peace, My All-in-All.

The scientific age with its urban-industrial culture is, for all its magnificent achievements and intoxicating success, in a very real read more

The scientific age with its urban-industrial culture is, for all its magnificent achievements and intoxicating success, in a very real sense a dark age. Its complete bondage to nature has enclosed the mind and spirit of man in a fast prison out of which, try as he may, he can find no way of escape. The inability to perceive any longer the reality of things invisible and unseen is a sickness of the soul which cries out to be cured. The only way to dispel the darkness of the present age and liberate it from the prison within which it has become bound is to restore the proper relationship of nature to supernature and of time to eternity as an essential feature of external reality. Until this can be accomplished, there is really very little that the Church or Christianity in general has to offer to this age.

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 If you have failings, ask read more

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 If you have failings, ask God often whether it be His honour and pleasure to take them away from you; for without Him you can do nothing. If he takes them away, thank Him; but if He does not do that, you will bear it no more, however, as the defect of a sin, but as a great trial with which you are to gain merit and practice patience. You should be content, whether or not He accords you His gift.

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 Gambling challenges the view of life which the Christian Church read more

Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 Gambling challenges the view of life which the Christian Church exists to uphold and extend. Its glorification of mere chance is a denial of the Divine order of nature. To risk money haphazard is to disregard the insistence of the Church in every age of living faith that possessions are a trust, and that men must account to God for their use. The persistent appeal to covetousness is fundamentally opposed to the unselfishness which was taught by Jesus Christ and by the New Testament as a whole. The attempt (which is inseparable from gambling) to make a profit out of the inevitable loss and possible suffering of others is the antithesis of that love of one's neighbour on which our Lord insisted.

Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes. We are personalities in the read more

Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes. We are personalities in the making, limited, and grappling with things too high for us. Obviously we, at very best, will make many mistakes, but these mistakes need not be sins. Our actions are the results of our intentions and our intelligence. Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake -- a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention. And therefore the action carries a sense of incompleteness and frustration, but not of guilt. Victorious living does not mean perfect living in the sense of living without flaw, but it does mean adequate living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much... religious read more

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 Jesus evidently felt deeply the emptiness and futility of much... religious talk. He was interested only in those emotions and professions which could get themselves translated into character and action. Words have always been the bane of religion as well as its vehicle. Religious emotion has enormous motive force, but it is the easiest thing in the world for it to sizzle away in high professions and wordy prayers. In that case, it is a substitute and counterfeit, and a damage to the Reign of God among men.

Feast of James the Apostle In the absence of so many vital points -- the spiritual understanding of read more

Feast of James the Apostle In the absence of so many vital points -- the spiritual understanding of the Law, and the consciousness of sin, the unity and all-sufficiency of Scripture, and the expectation of the Messiah -- we cannot wonder that the idea of God, as it lived in faithful Israel of old, was also obscured. Instead of the living, loving, self-manifesting God of the Old Testament Israel now took hold of the abstract idea of the unity, or rather the unicity, of God, as if that were God. Before -- when they lived in communion with God, when God was known to them as a Person, speaking, acting, blessing, who had chosen them, who was educating them, and who was going to fulfill His promises -- they declared, in opposition to the idolatrous nations that surrounded them, that this God of Israel was one God, that there are not many gods; but when they lost communion with God, in order to show what distinguished them from the nations of the earth, and especially from Christians, they emphasized that God in Himself was only one Person, and not as He is revealed to us in the Scripture: Sender, Sent, and Spirit. It is the boast of the modern Jewish synagogue that their great mission is to testify to the world the unity of God. But it is a striking fact that the Gentile nations who have, since the dispersion of Israel, been converted from idolatry, have been influenced, not by the synagogue, but by the congregations of Jesus Christ, and were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost... It is one thing to believe in justification by faith, it is another thing to be justified by faith; and so it is one thing to believe in God, who is One, and it is another to believe in the numerical abstraction, in the mere idea of unicity.