Theology That Bites Back
“Son, I don’t want you to ever apologize to somebody just because they say to. If you owe them one, don’t make them ask. You should be there ahead of them. And if you don’t owe them one, then your apology is not anything with them. It is trying to put things back together on the foundation of a lie. And lies always collapse under any weight you try to put on them”
Ecochondriacs, p. 87
“Cody suddenly realized that his internal moral monitor, his robust conscience, was going to wake up any minute and start swearing at him like a machinist mate on a tramp steamer. That would not be good. That would be unsettling. Evangelical consciences don’t usually cuss like that”
Ecochondriacs, p. 81
“‘But . . . what about academic freedom? . . . what about my arguments? . . . what about the truth?’
‘What did you get your doctorate in? Idealism? On hobbits dancing in meadows?’”
Ecochondriacs, p. 80
“Trevor had taken the line that the Hebrew midwives were onto a good thing in lying to Pharaoh, that Rahab had done right by sending the pursuers galloping off in exactly the wrong direction, and that David was not offending against charity by pretending to be insane, much to the exasperation of Achish”
Ecochondriacs, p. 73
“Once you learn the discipline of worldview thinking, Trevor had concluded, other people think you are psychic”
Ecochondriacs, p. 72
“Professors like to talk about themselves, and so the key was to ask them to talk about themselves”
Ecochondriacs, p. 71
“When they had moved from Choctaw Valley, Trevor had settled into his studies easily, and found that full-time load, given his energy levels, was really only about half time, and because his was a personality that was full of beans, with scarcely room left for one more bean, he saw right away that he would have to find some edifying way to fill up the remainder of his time”
Ecochondriacs, p. 69
“Jill was an avid baseball fan, and was there at the stadium using up her season tickets as often as her schedule permitted. ‘It gives me an opportunity to yell at people without incurring any societal disapproval,’ she said. ‘That’s an argument,’ Larry said”
Ecochondriacs, p. 62
“Larry jumped to his feet to follow her, and Eve noticed how quick and cat-like he was. Big cat. But when he disappeared from her line of sight, she cocked an ear for a moment. There was no indication, faint or loud, of anything like fee fi fo fum”
Ecochondriacs, pp. 59-60
“‘Oh, deadly serious. No God, above us, only sky. It seems that boinking nubile young dopes would be just the ticket. If morality is just a social construct, one has to admire that kind of clear-headed behavior. And in a Christian school, too.’ Marcie just stared. Jill looked back at her with her very best fat face. And, as fat faces go, it was a pretty good one”
Ecochondriacs, p. 59
