“Even if it is a very small congregation, and perhaps even especially when it is a small congregation, it can thus become the growing point from which the subversion of the principalities and powers and the first shoots of a new creation can develop.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p87
“The most important contribution which the Church can make to a new social order is to be itself a new social order. More fundamental than any of the things which the Church can say or do is the reality of a new society which allows itself to be shaped by the Christian faith.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p85
“If we accept the model of what I have called a committed pluralism, we can look for and work for a time when Christian leadership (not Christian domination) can shape society, shape the plausibility structure within which people make their decisions and come to their beliefs. I know that by using the term “leadership” I am laying myself open to the charge of elitism, that most unforgivable among the current list of unforgivable sins. I decline to be intimidated. Elitism has become a bad word because we have had too much experience of self-serving elites. But the remedy is not to deny the necessity for leadership; that is simply evasion. It is the summons to a leadership which is modeled on that of the one whose words “Follow me” are constitutive of the Church.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p85
“It should become part of the normal work of the Church to equip its members for the exercise of priesthood in the many different areas of secular life, and in terms of the specific powers that rule those areas.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p84
“If I understand the teaching of the New Testament on this matter, I understand the role of the Christian as that of being neither a conservative nor an anarchist, but a subversive agent… We do not spend enough of our energies training undercover agents.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p82
“We have to reject ideologies which give to particular elements in God’s ordering of things the central and absolute place which belongs to Christ alone. It is good to love and serve the nation in which God has set us; we need more, not less true patriotism. But to give absolute commitment to the nation is to go into bondage. Family and kinship are precious gifts to be loved and cherished, but racism is a corruption of what is good. The mutuality of man and woman in God’s image is among the most precious of God’s gifts, and feminism may be a legitimate protest against the evils of male dominance, but if it becomes the focus of ultimate commitment it becomes idolatrous. The free market is a good way of balancing supply and demand. If it is absolutized and allowed to rule economic life, it becomes an evil power.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth pp80-81
“The idea that if economic life is detached from all moral considerations and left to operate by its own laws all will be well is simply an abdication of human responsibility. It is the handing over of human life to the pagan goddess of fortune. If Christ’s sovereignty is not recognized in the world of economics, then demonic powers take control.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p77
“The ideology which we have to recognize, unmask, and reject is an ideology of freedom, a false and idolatrous conception which equates it with the freedom of each individual to do as he or she wishes. We have to set it against it the Trinitarian faith which sees all reality in terms of relatedness.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p75
“The proper freedom of the Church is inseparable from its obligation to declare the sovereignty of Christ over every sphere of human life without exception. The individualistic model of freedom which pervades our society and controls the way we approach every question has to be challenged by the gospel affirmation that we are not naturally free but that we may receive the gift of freedom when we are in Christ, and that in every area of life there is only one Lord to be obeyed, namely the Lord Jesus Christ.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth p71
“… life moves toward its proper completion not automatically by any purely mechanical or organic process but in response to a loving purpose, which draws out and makes actual powers that were otherwise only latent and potential.” — Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks p93