Continuing a short series about the early church: The sure way to success for any commercial venture is read more

Continuing a short series about the early church: The sure way to success for any commercial venture is to suggest that those people who buy things from it, or gamble on its terms, are members of a "club", a "circle". Study the advertisements in any popular magazine: people are "invited to apply for membership"; "members will receive a catalogue"; they are even offered "rules", which they gladly accept because the need for authority lies heavily upon them; they then receive a card admitting them to the circle, with the "President's signature" printed on it. In the need for belonging, the acknowledgement of dependence, may lie the greatest opportunity of the Christian evangelist. It is not unlike the conditions under which the early Church worked. In the later Roman Empire, crumbling under its own size, its communications and resources stretched to the utmost, the mystery-religions came into their own. Rites of initiation, the sharing of secret knowledge, offered to people of all classes an escape from the perplexities of life, a retreat into a closed circle of the elect where they might feel that their transformed personalities had some significance. Who can know how many weary souls there were who strayed into the Church through rumours of a secret rite of purification, of a shared meal that conferred wisdom, and who remained to comprehend the fullness of the Godhead, a belonging greater than they had ever imagined.

We must be ready, indeed eager, to see God's Name being hallowed outside the Church as well as inside. It read more

We must be ready, indeed eager, to see God's Name being hallowed outside the Church as well as inside. It may be that today the philosopher is honouring the Name af God when he insists that we should know what we mean when we utter our religious language and that we should be ready to have that meaning tested. It may be that other philosophers hallow the Name when they refuse to allow us to withdraw it to some supernatural realm, but insist on wrestling with the unknown God in the agony and joy of existence, crying with Jacob, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy Name." And is not the scientist honouring the Name when he patiently and obediently follows where the evidence leads? Or the social scientist when he asks us to understand what is before we begin pronouncing what ought to be? God does not spend all His time in Church.

If we think that Jesus did not rise, but "lives" and "reigns" only in his memories and imaginations, and is read more

If we think that Jesus did not rise, but "lives" and "reigns" only in his memories and imaginations, and is not actively and objectively "there" in the place of power, irrespective of whether he is acknowledged or not, we should give up hope of our own rising, and of Jesus' public return, and admit that the idea of churches and Christians being sustained by the Spirit-giving energy of a living Lord was never more than a pleasing illusion. And, in that case, we ought frankly to affirm that, though the New Testament is an amazing witness to the religious creativity of the human spirit, its actual message is more wrong than right, more misleading than helpful; and we must reconstruct our gospel accordingly. Only a weak, muddled, or cowardly mind will hesitate to do this.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 God hath work to do in this world; read more

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.

But since cause and effect is under the personal control of God, He can introduce into the situation other causes read more

But since cause and effect is under the personal control of God, He can introduce into the situation other causes than the ones which we ourselves can control. When in faith we come to God for cleansing from the mess we have made of things, and when we ask for power to reverse causes we have set in motion, God sends in other causes by His Holy Spirit. It may be by direct intervention, or by a combination of circumstances which He controls. We can, therefore, be delivered from the wrath to come, because God will add other causes than those that we have initiated.

Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 He has loved us without being loved... We are bound to read more

Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380 He has loved us without being loved... We are bound to Him, and not He to us, because before He was loved, He loved us... There it is, then: we cannot... love Him with this first love. Yet I say that God demands of us, that as He has loved us without any second thoughts, so He should be loved by us. In what way can we do this, then? ... I tell you, through a means which he has established, by which we can love Him freely; ... that is, we can be useful, not to Him -- which is impossible -- but to our neighbor... To show the love that we have for Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature and extend our charity to good and bad -- as much to one who does us ill service and criticizes us as to one who serves us. For, His charity extends over just men and sinners.

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, read more

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense -- first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur.

Feast of the Holy Cross If we ever are to attain to true Divine Peace, and be completely united read more

Feast of the Holy Cross If we ever are to attain to true Divine Peace, and be completely united to God, all that is not absolutely necessary, either bodily or spiritually, must be cast off; everything that could interpose itself to an unlawful extent between us and Him, and lead us astray: for He alone will be Lord in our hearts, and none other; for Divine Love can admit of no rival.

Theology in general, instead of acting as a beacon-light to guide the people of God, the laity, as they confront read more

Theology in general, instead of acting as a beacon-light to guide the people of God, the laity, as they confront the problems of living for Christ in the world, has for generations been taking refuge in an ever more minute study of Christian origins. Theology is less and less about God and God's world, and more and more a department of ancient history, absorbed in minute details of historical and literary criticism. The whole business is wildly out of proportion.