“Grace has no handles and is impossible for sinners to pick up. But grace does have hands and consequently has no difficulty picking us up.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 173
Momentary Men, Not Modern
“We careen from one thing to the next, thumb on the remote. Our presidential debates are not debates at all but more like demolition derbies between competing sound bytes. On virtually all our products, we plaster some form of ‘New! Improved!’ In other words, the product is emphatically not what it was the last time we were foolish enough to buy it. Sermons have deteriorated into 10-minute-long, entertaining sketches of some inspiration mini-thought or other. Momentous event on the other side of the world are summarized for us on the evening news in one minute and forty-five seconds . . . and now this. Continuity bores us. Sustained thought is wearisome. And whatever you do, it better be different from last time. In a culture like ours, fads are just like cotton—the fabric of our lives.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 169-170
Bag O’Snakes Seminary
“The Lord’s usual preaching target did not appear to be drug dealers and hookers. His assaults were usually directed at religious professionals. Further, He did not address them in a true collegial spirit, as one truth-seeking rabbi to another. Instead, He referred to ‘Fools and blind! Blind guides! Hypocrites! Serpents! Brood of vipers!” From all this we might conclude that seminaries should be called a bag of snakes from time to time in order to help them keep their vision and focus clear.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 166
The Door of My Heart With Portcullis Up
“I hope it is possible to say this with all reverence, but Jesus was a tough customer . . . the image that many have of the Lord’s personality and strength of character comes more from man-made traditions and saccharine portrait painters than it does from the Bible. One easily envisions a genteel limp-wrist standing outside the door of someone’s heart, gently tapping, because of course the doorknob is only on the inside. The only thing missing from this vision is the ribbon in his hair. I have sometimes thought that a far better picture of Jesus knocking at the door of my heart would be a commanding hand from offstage, two rows of angels with a battering ram, and a worried-looking troll peeking out over the wall of a castle. Otto Scott put it well when he said that God of the Bible is no buttercup.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 163-164
Which?
“When God is ‘removed’ from His predestinating throne, men do not merely breathe a sigh of relief. Rather, they quickly notice that the throne is vacant and begin scheming about how to occupy it . . . The only alternative to a predestinating state is a predestinating God . . . And because we do not want Him, we get them.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 161-162
Go Figure
“Predestinarian Calvinists we’re the fathers of civil liberty, and advocates of free will paved the way for various forms of statism.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 160
Parish the Thought
“Life in the church involves Word and sacraments, while life in the parish involves auto mechanics, farming, retail shops, and schools, along with all the other stuff men and women do.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 152
Which Is Harder Than It Sounds
“Joseph did not find himself ruling Egypt because he graduated from the right law school. Daniel did not find himself a great man in Babylon through some shrewd Mesopotamian logrolling. They got where they did because they had backbones that would not bend.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 148
Which It Does Not
Another “error is the idea that since the Gospel will have political effects, politics can have a Gospel effect.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 148
Aiming for Calm Results, No Matter What
“The first is the error of the man who insists we should ‘just preach the Gospel,’ but who also believes intensely that the Gospel can permeate an unbelieving society without throwing that society into cultural upheaval. In order to get the desired calm result, the Gospel that is preached has to be ethereal, otherworldly, and impotent.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 148