Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851 Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965 read more

Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851 Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965 Who is it that has helped you most? Has it not been those who believed in you? Perhaps there may be few such left. The light of expectation may have died out of the most friendly and hopeful eyes; and you yourself may have lost heart. Ah! but there is still One whose faith in you has never wavered. And how wonderful it is that that one should be Jesus Christ!... It was a wonderful dream God dreamed, Christ says, when He created you; it was a stately being that was in His mind when you were fashioned; and I can make you all He meant that you should be.

Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but life in scorn of consequences -- a courageous trust in the read more

Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but life in scorn of consequences -- a courageous trust in the great purpose of all things, and pressing forward to finish the work which is in sight, whatever the price may be.

Christmas turns things tail-end foremost. The day and the spirit of Christmas rearrange the world parade. As the world arranges read more

Christmas turns things tail-end foremost. The day and the spirit of Christmas rearrange the world parade. As the world arranges it, usually there come first in importance -- leading the parade with a big blare of a band -- the Big Shots. Frequently they are also the Stuffed Shirts. That's the first of the parade. Then at the tail end, as of little importance, trudge the weary, the poor, the lame, the halt, and the blind. But in the Christmas spirit, the procession is turned around. Those at the tail end are put first in the arrangement of the Child of Christmas.

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that read more

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 It is not experience of life but experience of the Cross that makes one a worthy hearer of confessions. The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of men. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother, I can dare to be a sinner.

[The] doctrine of progress sustained our fathers in the carrying of capitalistic democratic culture to most parts of the globe. read more

[The] doctrine of progress sustained our fathers in the carrying of capitalistic democratic culture to most parts of the globe. Its core was the conviction that in thus extending the range of western liberal culture and developing its assumptions, they were in effect establishing on earth that which would grow into the kingdom of God. Some put it sharply but un-Biblically: "building the Kingdom". That whole view exists today only as debris, for it has foundered on the rocks, not so much of human sin, as of the contradictions and complexities of the very western culture which was the substance of its belief.

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of read more

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life, that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.

Assumptions based on faith are apparently an ever-present component in any system of belief -- whether these assumptions include the read more

Assumptions based on faith are apparently an ever-present component in any system of belief -- whether these assumptions include the existence of a personal God, or whether they begin with non-rational directionally-emergent forces governed by statistical probabilities. Our argument does not claim that evidences are so clear that faith is not needed. We do intend to imply, however, that the choice of a set of assumptions is a moral choice. Adherence to an epistemology is not something which merely "happens to" a person, but instead it reflects a component of his moral development. In some sense he is, in my judgment, morally responsible for adopting an epistemology even though it can be neither proved nor disproved to the satisfaction of those who oppose it.

Feast of the Holy Innocents The whole being of any Christian is Faith and Love... Faith brings the man read more

Feast of the Holy Innocents The whole being of any Christian is Faith and Love... Faith brings the man to God, love brings him to men.

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century Most people feel unworthy of forgiveness. They have a read more

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century Most people feel unworthy of forgiveness. They have a tremendous sense of unworthiness, even if outwardly they are antagonistic toward God and the Gospel.