Tag: Chrestomathy

“In every culture, pride is seen as a challenge to the established god and humility is seen as obeisance before that god. In modern America, the reigning ‘god’ is the individual self. Confidence about anything other than self is therefore dismissed as arrogance. In other words, arrogance (biblically defined) is the one thing that is not seen as arrogance, and every form of biblical humility is redefined as a form of pride. The man who says, ‘The Bible teaches . . .’ is, by definition, a proud man. By contrast, the man who says, ‘It seems to me . . .’ is defined as humble. But the former is pointing away from himself entirely, while the second fellow is talking about his own thoughts and feelings, and nothing else.”

The Cultural Mind, pp. 219-220

“The title deed to the world is in the hand of Jesus Christ. But the hand of Jesus Christ is part of His body—and we are that body . . . We have a battering ram about which the lords and princes of this world know nothing, and every Lord’s Day we take another swing at their gates with it.”

The Cultural Mind, p. 215

“When the history of redemption is finally and completely written, we will find that the world was conquered in the name of Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit empowering words, water, bread, and wine.”

The Cultural Mind, p. 214

“To change the image, we have been like the boy in Aesop who cried Antichrist too many times.”

The Cultural Mind, p. 211

“And this is why we now see the foolishness of dating things BCE (before the common era) instead of BC (before Christ), and CE (common era) instead of AD (anno Domini). Christian writers ought to fight with their editors for AD, and if they lose, they should then tell everyone that CE means ‘Christ’s Empire.’”

The Cultural Mind, p. 210

“We rarely notice our bones, and consequently, we rarely notice what is in them.”

The Cultural Mind, p. 209

“We are amazed that doctors used to bleed their patients. But we then assume, as a rigid point of dogma, that we are doing nothing comparable. We believe, without reflection, that no on in the future will be amazed and appalled at what we are doing today.”

The Cultural Mind, p. 208

“We see that science, rightly understood, is a glorious thing . . . The problem arises with all the bad information that we think is science, such as junk pop science or politicized science. Scientists who do not acknowledge a God with final ultimate knowledge of every created thing have a problem . . . when scientists refuse to acknowledge an omniscient Creator God, their pretensions to actual knowledge become funnier and funnier. This is because we all instinctively know that someone around here must be the omniscient one. If we have denied that God can be that one, then someone else must take on the mantle. In our society, this priestcraft, this shamanism, is performed with a white lab coat.”

The Cultural Mind, pp. 205-206

“We want to face fifteen little Goliaths, one at a time. This is why when we focus on one little giant, the other fourteen take us down fairly easily. We need to recover the faith of David and pray that the whole system of unbelief, the massive resistance to discipleship, will be seen all at once, all together, lying on the ground with a stone in its forehead.”

The Cultural Mind, p. 200

“Most contemporary worship songs would be appropriate to sing to your girlfriend. Substitute ‘darling’ for ‘Jesus’ and the song still works. Try doing that with ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise’. . . After a generation of singing such sentimental offerings to the Lord, He then becomes a girlfriend, at least in the minds of those who worship. But there is a vast difference between the omnipresent God who is everywhere present and a girlfriend who is ‘always there.’”

The Cultural Mind, pp. 195-196