“The Augustinian theology and philosophy of history with their intense realization of the burden of inherited evil under which the human race laboured and their conception of divine grace as a continually renewed source of supernatural energy which transforms human nature and changes the course of history—all this had become part of the spiritual patrimony …
The Education of the Lord
Those who are involved in the work of rebuilding Christian education in our culture are usually familiar with Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:4. He says in that place that fathers are to take care to bring up their children in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” This is taken vaguely by some as an …
Not A Great Man for Bones
“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. I think …
Crowns Roll in the Dust
“The world’s way of responding to intimations of decay is to engage equally in idiot hopes and idiot despair . . . In Christian terms, such hopes and fears are equally beside the point. As Christians we know that here we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust and every earthly kingdom …
Clutching at Novelty
“A dying civilization, Christendom, on a swiftly moving, ebbing tide, clutches at any novelty in art and literature, ready to accept and then almost at once reject whatever is new no matter how perverse or abnormal. We have a ‘weariness with striving to be men,’ as the American critic Leslie Fiedler put it” (Malcolm Muggeridge, …
And Guess Where We Are
“I must also leave you to analyze the cultural decline of Western art and literature. In the cycle of a great civilization, the artist begins as a priest and ends as a clown or buffoon” (Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, p. 18).
His Canterburyness
“The last Archbishop of Canterbury but one, Dr. Ramsey, appeared not to realize this when, to my amazement, at the end of a performance of Godspell, he rose to his feet and shouted: ‘Long live God,’ which, as I reflected at the time, was like shouting, ‘Carry on eternity’ or ‘keep going infinity.’ The incident …
Believing Skepticism
“Next to this genius of Pascal’s words I would draw your attention to the beautiful lucidity of his mind, the wonderful clarity of his thought. Like all true believers, he was deeply skeptical” (Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, p. 4).
Lots of Things We Could Do
Letter from a Christian Citizen has drawn the attention of Richard Dawkins, and there was quite a discussion over at his blog. If you want to take a look, you can see it all here. I am not asking you to go over there to pile into the discussion — in fact I would recommend …
The Guy in the Teapot
Not surprisingly, Richard Dawkins places the evolutionary process at the center of his argument. “This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution” (p. 31, emphasis in the original). This might be hard …