Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 If God said, "I forgive you," to a read more

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 If God said, "I forgive you," to a man who hated his brother, and if (as is impossible) that voice of forgiveness should reach the man, what would it mean to him? How would the man interpret it? Would it not mean to him, "You may go on hating. I do not mind it. You have had great provocation, and are justified in your hate?" No doubt God takes what wrong there is, and what provocation there is, into the account; but the more provocation, the more excuse that can be urged for the hate, the more reason, if possible, that the hater should be delivered from the hell of his hate, that God's child should be made the loving child that He meant him to be. The man would think, not that God loved the sinner, but that He forgave the sin, which God never does. Every sin meets its due fate -- inexorable expulsion from the paradise of God's Humanity.

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 A large acquaintance with clerical life has led me read more

Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893 A large acquaintance with clerical life has led me to think that almost any company of clergymen gathering together and talking freely to one another will express opinions which would greatly surprise and at the same time relieve the congregations who ordinarily listen to these ministers.

Is it unfair to suggest that, in some of us at least, [Christianity] hasn't fully worked so far simply because, read more

Is it unfair to suggest that, in some of us at least, [Christianity] hasn't fully worked so far simply because, at the pinch, at the decisive moment, we don't want it to work or ourselves to be lifted up above the failings and disloyalties we find so alluring, but rather to be enabled to continue them without the ugly consequences of so doing, to have the inexorable laws of life bent aside in our favour, so that we can squeeze through and escape, without reaping what we have sown; because, as we misunderstand it, the whole point of the good news our Lord brings is the (to us) gladsome announcement that God is happily much more morally indifferent than our consciences had thought, and is not going to make a fuss about our sins and such-like trivial peccadilloes, but will surely let us off -- because, in fact, we have not grasped that the core and essence of the Gospel... is its tremendous and glorious revelation of how deadly is God's hatred of sin, so that He cannot stand having it in the same universe as Himself, and will go any length, and will pay any price, and will make any sacrifice, to master and abolish it, is set upon so doing in our hearts, thank God, as elsewhere.

Next to the wicked lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion as the divisions read more

Next to the wicked lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion as the divisions of Christians.

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 As long as I live, read more

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 As long as I live, I will never appeal for money for the mission of God in this world. This is a degradation of God and of ourselves, which has pauperized us in every way over the centuries. God has no need, and if the mission is God's, then we do not ask for help to give God a boost; therefore we do not appeal for funds. We allow people to take a share in God's work, and this is a very different thing.

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss read more

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild skepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt whether there is a world. It might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretense that modern England is Christian. But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow.

Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877 In saying God is there, we are saying God exists, and not read more

Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877 In saying God is there, we are saying God exists, and not just talking about the word God, or the idea God. We are speaking of the proper relationship to the living God who exists. In order to understand the problems of our generation, we should be very alive to this distinction. Semantics (linguistic analysis) makes up the heart of modern philosophical study in the Anglo-Saxon world. Though the Christian cannot accept this study as a total philosophy, there is no reason why he should not be glad for the concept that words need to be defined before they can be used in communication. As Christians, we must understand that there is no word so meaningless as the word "god" until it is defined. No word has been used to reach absolutely opposite concepts as much as the word "god". Consequently, let us not be confused. There is much "spirituality" about us today that would relate itself to the word god or to the idea god; but this is not what we are talking about. Biblical truth and spirituality is not a relationship to the word god, or to the idea god. It is a relationship to the one who is there, which is an entirely different concept.

Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 Only those who read more

Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906 Only those who try to live near God and have formed the habit of faithfulness to Him in the small things of our daily life, can hope in times of need for that special light which shows us our path. To do as well as we can the job immediately before us, is the way to learn what we ought to do next.

To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, God appeared as a read more

To the spiritual perplexity which exercised so many of the rarest souls of the nineteenth century, God appeared as a Being whom men desired to find but could not. But such a formula, though it truly represented one side of their situation, can never represent the whole of any human situation. For God is also a Being whom it ill suits any of us to find but from whom we cannot escape. Part of the reason why men cannot find God is that there is that in Him which they do not desire to find, so that the God whom they are seeking and cannot find is not the God who truly is. Perhaps we could not fail to find God, if it were really God whom we were seeking. And indeed the deepest reality of the situation is that contained in the discovery, which alone is likely at last to resolve our perplexity, that when we were so distressfully seeking that which was not really God, the true God had already found us, though at first we did not know that it was He by whom we had been found. There is a saying, "Be careful what you seek; you might find it." And some who have sought God only as a complacent ally of their own ambitions have found Him a consuming fire.