Category: Quotes

A Prayer in Solitude

Since I accidentally pushed out a blank blog post yesterday to all who subscribe (oops!), I wanted to write something a little more substantive today to make it up to all of you. I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s book Thoughts in Solitude in an attempt to learn as much as I can about how to … Continue reading A Prayer in Solitude →

Spurgeon and the Lazy Monk

One of the more consistently popular posts on this blog is this one from 2012, in which I showed the two versions of Charles Spurgeon's famous illustration that compares the gospel to a lion. In honor of the fact that the Spurgeon Commentary New Testament Letters collection is now compiled and should be on its … Continue reading Spurgeon and the Lazy Monk →

Rodney Stark on “The People’s Religion”

I've been reading Rodney Stark's The Triumph of Christianity, and I'm struck by what he says about one of my major interests, Christian education, during the Reformation and post-Reformation: The English philosopher John Locke (1632--1704) noted that a preacher "may as well talk Arabic to a poor day-labourer as the notions" that the Anglican clergy preferred … Continue reading Rodney Stark on “The People’s Religion” →

Spurgeon’s “Let the lion out of the cage” quote

Every now and then, I hear it attributed to some great preacher of the past that the gospel (or sometimes, the Bible) is like a lion (or sometimes, a tiger). The idea is that it doesn't need to be defended; it just needs to be let out of the cage. It's a great quote, but … Continue reading Spurgeon’s “Let the lion out of the cage” quote →

Václav Havel: 1936–2011

Václav Havel, the playwright and dissident who became president of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the Czech Republic in 1993, died on Sunday. Havel was still president when I went to Prague to teach English in the fall of 2002. I was there in early 2003 when his term as president ended. For the last month … Continue reading Václav Havel: 1936–2011 →

Gandhi on Truth and Public Service

Lately I have been reading Gandhi’s Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. There have been a few passages that I’ve skimmed over (like when he rattles off a string of names I don’t recognize, or when he dwells at length on his dietary habits), but there are also some great quotes like this … Continue reading Gandhi on Truth and Public Service →

John Stott on Social Justice

This Lent, I have been reading John Stott's classic book, The Cross of Christ, to focus on what Jesus' death means. I found this quote in the last section of the book, called "Living Under the Cross." In light of the recent conflict between Glenn Beck and Jim Wallis on the meaning of "social justice," … Continue reading John Stott on Social Justice →

Christianity and the American Revolution

I know I shared a quote from this book yesterday, but I couldn't resist sharing another juicy one: ... the American Revolution became imbued with a religious cast not because Christians of that era were especially adept at applying Christianity to politics, but because so many people of religious fervor came to consider the political … Continue reading Christianity and the American Revolution →

Quote 3 – C.S. Lewis on Instincts and Values

"Telling us to obey instincts is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence to we derive this rule of precedence? To listen … Continue reading Quote 3 – C.S. Lewis on Instincts and Values →