When our Lord began his ministry he announced a manifesto, far more comprehensive, thoroughgoing, and revolutionary than any socialism, which read more

When our Lord began his ministry he announced a manifesto, far more comprehensive, thoroughgoing, and revolutionary than any socialism, which spoke of the good news to the poor, release for prisoners, and recovery of sight to the blind. The Church must learn to stand solidly behind all efforts to bring fuller life to people.

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure read more

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure upsurges of fresh spiritual vitality, breaking through and revolting against the hardened structure of the older body, and claiming, in the name of the Spirit, liberty from outward forms and institutions. And we have seen how rapidly they develop their own forms, their own structures of thought, of language, and of organisation. It would surely be a very unbiblical view of human nature and history to think -- as we so often, in our pagan way, do -- that this is just an example of the tendency of all things to slide down from a golden age to an age of iron, to identify the spiritual with the disembodied, and to regard visible structure as equivalent to sin. We must rather recognise here a testimony to the fact that Christianity is, in its very heart and essence, not a disembodied spirituality, but life in a visible fellowship, a life which makes such total claim upon us, and so engages our total powers, that nothing less than the closest and most binding association of men with one another can serve its purpose. ... Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God February 2, 2000 THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE Persons that are well affected to religion, that receive instructions of piety with pleasure and satisfaction, often wonder how it comes to pass that they make no greater progress in that religion which they so much admire. Now the reason of it is this: it is because religion lives only in their head, but something else has possession of their heart; and therefore they continue from year to year mere admirers and praisers of piety, without ever coming up to the reality and perfection of its precepts.

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always read more

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me (Ezekiel 16:63).

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 Although we have different ways of worshipping and doing things, we have read more

Commemoration of Charles Williams, Spiritual Writer, 1945 Although we have different ways of worshipping and doing things, we have only one God. So how can we claim to have... "Good News" unless people can see in us that Jesus Christ is breaking down barriers and bringing us together?

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor read more

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action -- you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things... You are not called to get to heaven, to do good, or to be good -- you are called to belong to Jesus Christ. The doing good, the being good, and the getting to heaven, are the by-products of that belonging. The center of conversion is the belonging of a person to a Person.

Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about the nature of read more

Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about the nature of the transformation which our Lord's body underwent in his resurrection, and if we know anything about physics and biology we are quite likely to ask them. But, since we are concerned with an occurrence which is by hypothesis unique in certain relevant aspects, we are most unlikely to be able to give confident answers to them. [Paul M.] van Buren's remarks about biology and the twentieth century are nothing more than rhetoric or, at best, are simply empirical statements about his own psychology. The first century knew as well as the twentieth that dead bodies do not naturally come to life again, and no amount of twentieth-century knowledge about natural processes can tell us what may happen by supernatural means.

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy read more

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever.

Feast of Barnabas the Apostle The disorder of secularism is perhaps nowhere more apparent in our contemporary Church than read more

Feast of Barnabas the Apostle The disorder of secularism is perhaps nowhere more apparent in our contemporary Church than in the extent to which we have permitted the order of the world to creep into the order of the Church... That it should carry out its mission to the men in the middle classes of capitalist society is doubtless a part of the Church's order; but that the mission should result in the formation of a middle-class church which defends the secular outlook and interests of that class is an evident corruption.

One mustn't make the Christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the Jewish, for two reasons. (1) It read more

One mustn't make the Christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the Jewish, for two reasons. (1) It raises scruples when we don't keep the routine. (2) It raises presumption when we do. Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.