Words'nTone

“If you want to make enemies, try to change something” ~President Woodrow Wilson

“[Adam] Smith may be the patron saint of capitalism and neon-classical economics, but like all such saints his texts are used selectively by his devotees.  While commentators may disagree among themselves as to how Smith is to be read, there is no doubt that many modern economists and governments have made of ‘market forces’ a quasi-religious deity far more powerful than anything worshipped in pre-modern cultures.  And, in the name of that deity, they have thrown men and women out of work, added insult to injury by blaming the poor for their own poverty, justified the ruthless accumulation of wealth by a few, and squandered the earth’s non-renewable resources.  As ‘market forces’ increasingly encroach on every aspect of human life, human beings are reduced to ‘consumers’, human behavior to ‘self-interest’, human society to ‘competitive individuals’, and the worth of every human endeavor to ‘cost-effectiveness . . .” ~Vinoth Ramachandra, Gods That Fail: Modern Idolatry & Christian Mission

“The mission of the church is nothing more or less than the outworking, in the power of the Spirit, of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. It is the anticipation of the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made… The split between saving souls and doing good in the world is not a product of the Bible or the gospel, but of the cultural captivity of both” ~N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

“The basic thesis is that mass publics respond to currently conspicuous political symbols: not to ‘facts’ and not to moral codes embedded in the character or soul, but to the gestures and the speeches that make up the drama of the state” ~Murray Edelman, Politics as Symbolic Action (1985 ed.)

“To live lives of faithful worship, to cultivate God’s imagination for justice, to trust Jesus Christ to do a work of liberation and transformation means there will be times when our noses will be filled with the stench of human need and evil.  But far more profoundly, we will also have glimpses of the glory of God that can set the capives free.  That’s God’s imagination” ~Mark Labberton, “Imagining Justice” (Prism 2007)

“The highest American good is more than the struggle over who gets what, when, and how. Politics has a community and justice dimension as well as a power dimension… If public opinion were not controlled by public philosophy, [Lippmann] argued, it would rarely be in the public interest. While it could truly express the voice of shifting voting groups, it must not be taken as the final verdict on a national issue. It was only the beginning of the argument” ~ Os Guinness, American Hour, 154-155

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes—and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“There are more idols than realities in the world; that is my ‘evil eye’ for this world; that is also my ‘evil ear.’” ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen” ~Martin Luther, Diet of Worms, April 17, 1521

“Both [sides, the North and the South] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other … It may seem strange that any men should dare ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces … Let us judge not, that we be not judged” ~Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief during the US Civil War

“This shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it.  Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal!  Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness!  Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonour!  Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation!  Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!” ~Father Mapple, Moby Dick

Ask people what they mean by religion and they usually mention God, rules for moral behavior, and whatever happens in their churches, synagogues, or temples.  But behind those beliefs, codes, and forms of worship lie the rituals and values they live by at home: the holiday things that absolutely have to be done; the kinds of success for which no sacrifice or effort would be too much; the sports events that connect with the whole struggle of life; the songs that stand for transcendent love, sadness, and joy; the television shows that express exactly how life is, or should be; the foods and drinks that can yield the last happiness of old age.  This is the realm of domistic religion” ~ Peter Gardella in Domestic Religion: Work, Food, Sex, and Other Commitments, p. 1

“Many evangelical leaders give the appearance of going into battle to maintain a certain morality or a certain standard of living and way of life—even a Kinkadian-like utopian vision of upward mobility and homogeneity…Instead of pointing the finger at the secularists and materialists, we evangelicals need to point it more at ourselves. Jesus did not die to save us from liberals. He died to save us from ourselves.” ~Paul Louis Metzger in Consuming Jesus, pp 33-34

“For every civilization, for every period of history, it is true to say, ‘show me what kind of gods you have, and I will tell you what kind of humanity you possess.’” ~Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt (1939)

Vengeance (ven’jəns) noun
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth; a fair, satisfying and rapid way to a sightless, toothless world.

Mercy (mer’sē) noun
The infrequent art of turning thumbs up on an old antagonist at the end of one’s rapier ~Calvin Miller, The Singer