Theology That Bites Back
“This contributes to the problem that many Christians have, which is assuming that tools are extraneous to our humanity, and not essential. Somebody thought them up, and perhaps they shouldn’t have. But when we see that tools are a subset of media, and that media were obviously a gifts from God, given to us through the mere fact of creation, we should become much more comfortable with the idea of tools as essential to our humanity.”
Ploductivity, p. 37
“Cultures pass through aesthetic phases as they rise and fall, and the last phase is the phase of decadence. It is the phase in which sensate spectacle is glorified, and it is a sign, not of glory but of decrepitude.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 45
“Here as everywhere the love of truth for itself is the only salvation. Love the truth, and then, for your people’s good and for your own delight, make it as beautiful as you can.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 132
“The world is laden with many good things, and apart from picking an apple or two with your bare hands, any kind of dominion has to be accomplished by means of tools. A man with tools is not being an artificial man. My argument is that a man cannot be an authentic man without tools.”
Ploductivity, p. 30
“Simplicity is beautiful when it is elegant. Complexity is beautiful when it is understated. The lines should be clean, not cluttered . . . Compare what we are going to do architecturally and liturgically with what a godly women should do to adorn herself. She should adorn herself, and she should make herself beautiful. But the Bible is explicit that this is not to be done by bedizening oneself with various spangles.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 43
“When God breathed the breath of life into Adam, and Adam first sat up, he did so with two opposable thumbs. And he used one of those thumbs when he chucked his first rock into the first pool he came to.”
Ploductivity, p. 30
“Both with architecture and with liturgy, there are some who assume that if one’s good, two must be better. The liturgy gets cluttered up with bright colors and shiny objects, and the architecture of the church looks, at the end of this process, like a gingerbread architect on acid did the whole thing.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 41
Introduction: I recently had the pleasure of going through Michael Reeves' engaging history of the Reformation, a book entitled The Unquenchable Flame . I bring this up because he made a passing comment ...
“In order to evaluate a tool, we have to account for the telos, the end, the purpose. Hammers are used to build both brothels and barns.”
Ploductivity, p. 29
