“We think that it is good simply for a man to love, for example, forgetting that it depends entirely upon what he loves. After all, John told us to love not the world, or the things in it. We believe it is a sin to hate, forgetting that this depends on what we hate. Is …
The Demand for Originality
“The demand for ‘originality’—with the implication that the reminiscence of other writers is a sin against originality and a defect in the work—is a recent one and would have seemed quite ludicrous to poets of the Augustan Age, or of Shakespeare’s time ” (Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, p. 121).
The Jackhammer of God
“If our hearts were a slab of concrete, and we wanted to keep them that way, our desire to have them caressed with a feather duster would exhibit no love of tenderness, but rather the contrary. The one who really wanted a tender heart would be calling for the jackhammer. Hard words, hard teaching, are …
From the Low Bottom of the Heart
“What is interesting is not Tyndale’s negation of the allegories but his positive attitude towards the literal sense. He loves it for its ‘grossness’ . . . Tyndale’s fame as an English writer has been most unjustly overshadowed both by the greater fame of More and by his own reputation as a translator. He seems …
Back to Lateral Metaphors
“Our minds are not infinite; and as the volume of the world’s knowledge increases, we tend more and more to confine ourselves, each to his special sphere of interest and to the specialized metaphor belonging to it. The analytic bias of the last three centuries has immensely encouraged this tendency, and it is now very …
Not Draped in Tinsel
“We should be preaching in such a way that sinners are altered, but never accommodated. We should be preaching in such a way that the truth is adorned, not draped in tinsel” (Mother Kirk, p. 76).
A Series of Metaphors
“The fact is, that all language about everything is analogical; we think in a series of metaphors. We can explain nothing in terms of itself, but only in terms of other things” (Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, p. 23).
Who Actually Needs to be Accepted?
“The point of preaching is never to make Christ acceptable. But in a man-centered era, this is automatically thought to be the task of the preacher — how to make God acceptable to man. The problem which confronts us in the Bible is actually quite different. The real problem is one of sin, and how …
With An Absolutely Delicious Aside
“Part of the unpleasant side of The Pilgrim’s Progress lies in the extreme narrowness and exclusiveness of Bunyan’s religious outlook. The faith is limited ‘to one small sect and all are damned beside’. But I suppose that all who read old books have learned somehow or other to make historical allowances for that sort of …
Why We Shouldn’t Worship Smoke
“That is the fact; whether we like it or not, the universe is made that way. This commandment [against idolatry] is interesting because it specifically puts forward the moral law as the basis of the moral code: because God has made the world like this and will not alter it, therefore you must not worship …