A Newbiginian Revolution

"Our faith as Christians is that just as God raised up dead, so will He raise up us from the dead...."

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:00:45 -0400

“Our faith as Christians is that just as God raised up dead, so will He raise up us from the dead. And that just as all that Jesus had done in the days of His flesh seemed on Easter Saturday to be buried in final failure and oblivion, yet was by God’s power raised to new life and power again, so all the faithful labor of God’s servants which time seems to bury in the dust of failure, will be raised up, will be found to be there, transfigured, in the new Kingdom. Every faithful act of service, every honest labor to make the world a better place, which seemed to have been forever lost and forgotten in the rubble of history, will be seen on that day to have contributed to the perfect fellowship of God’s Kingdom. As Christ, who committed Himself to God and was faithful even when all ended in utter failure and rejection, was by God raised up so that all that He had done as found to be not lost, but alive and powerful, so all who have committed their work in faithfulness to God will be by Him raised up to share in the new age, and will find that their labor was not lost, but that it has found its place in the completed Kingdom.”

- Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History p47

"To say that humans are, at root, lovers, is to emphasize that we are the sorts of animals for whom..."

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:21 -0500

“To say that humans are, at root, lovers, is to emphasize that we are the sorts of animals for whom things matter in ways that we often don’t (and can’t) articulate.”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p51

"What we do (practices) is intimately linked to what we desire (love), so what we do determines..."

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:00:32 -0500

“What we do (practices) is intimately linked to what we desire (love), so what we do determines whether, how, and what we can know.”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p70

"Habits are inscribed on our heart through bodily practices and rituals that train the heart, as it..."

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:00:14 -0500

“Habits are inscribed on our heart through bodily practices and rituals that train the heart, as it were, to desire certain ends.”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p58

"[Habits are learned, yet] can become so intricately woven into the fiber of our being that they..."

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:00:14 -0500

“[Habits are learned, yet] can become so intricately woven into the fiber of our being that they function as if they were natural or biological.”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p56

"What if education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions - our visions of..."

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:00:13 -0500

“What if education was primarily concerned with shaping our hopes and passions - our visions of “the good life” and not merely about the dissemination of data and information as inputs of our thinking? … What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know but about what we love?”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p18

"The practices that are part and parcel of cultural institutions aim to point our desire toward..."

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 22:06:13 -0500

“The practices that are part and parcel of cultural institutions aim to point our desire toward certain ends precisely because such orientations are inscribed into the institution itself.”

- James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom p72

"True freedom is a gift of grace given by the one who is in fact Lord; that gift, freely given, can..."

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 23:43:54 -0500

“True freedom is a gift of grace given by the one who is in fact Lord; that gift, freely given, can only be received in freedom. It follows that the church cannot bear witness to that gift unless there is freedom to refuse it. Yet the church must still bear witness that this is the only true freedom: to belong wholly to the one by whom the space of freedom is created, and whose service is perfect freedom.”

- Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks p141

"The idea that there is no third way between agnostic pluralism and a despotic theocracy is another..."

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 12:55:59 -0500

“The idea that there is no third way between agnostic pluralism and a despotic theocracy is another by-product of the split between a false objectivity and a false subjectivity. It is surely possible to envision, and therefore also obligatory to work for, a society that is pluralist in the sense that the scientific community is pluralist, a society that believes in the possibility of knowing the truth about human nature and destiny and that is committed to seeking further understanding. Within such a society the Christian Church would be free and would be in duty bound to put forth its belief with the fullest confidence into the public argument about all human affairs.”

- Lesslie Newbigin, A Word in Season, pp 169-170

“Whatever my relational community, that will shape my...

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:38:24 -0500

“Whatever my relational community, that will shape my desires, my hopes, my aspirations. That is true for all of us.”

Regarding teaching children the joy of learning for its own sake...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:31:15 -0500

Regarding teaching children the joy of learning for its own sake rather than using other means: “What we draw a child with is what we draw a child to.”

"… it is a striking fact that nowhere in the letters of St. Paul does the apostle lay upon the..."

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:30:19 -0500

“… it is a striking fact that nowhere in the letters of St. Paul does the apostle lay upon the Church the duty of evangelism. The gospel is such a tremendous reality that he cannot possibly keep silent about it … . The tomb is empty, Jesus is risen, death is conquered, God does reign after all. There is an explosion of joy, news that cannot be kept secret. Everyone must hear it. A new creation has begun. One does not have to be summoned to the “task” of evangelism. If these things are really true, they have to be told.”

- Lesslie Newbigin, A Word in Season p151

"In the end, the society we have is not a secular society but a pagan society, a society in which men..."

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 23:37:49 -0500

“In the end, the society we have is not a secular society but a pagan society, a society in which men and women are giving their allegiance to no-gods.”

- Lesslie Newbigin, A Word in Season p150

"An education, then, is a constellation of practices, rituals, and routines that inculcates a..."

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 10:00:03 -0500

“An education, then, is a constellation of practices, rituals, and routines that inculcates a particular vision of the good life by inscribing or infusing that vision into the heart (the gut) by means of material embodied practices.”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p26

"The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the..."

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:53:35 -0500

“The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled.”

- Lyndon B. Johnson, Commencement Address at Howard University: “To Fulfill These Rights” June 4, 1965

"To this end [to learn and grow, to work and share in society, to develop their abilities] equal..."

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:41:45 -0500

“To this end [to learn and grow, to work and share in society, to develop their abilities] equal opportunity is essential, but not enough, not enough. Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in—by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.”

- Lyndon B. Johnson, Commencement Address to Howard University 1965

"Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are..."

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 10:00:10 -0500

“Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices of the mall - the liturgies of mall and market - that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes an implicit telos, or goal, of our own desires and actions. That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions. These quasi-liturgies effect an education of desire, a pedagogy of the heart. But if the church is complicit with this sort of formation, where could we look for an alternative education of desire?”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p25

"So what would it take to resist the alluring formation of our desire - and hence our identity - that..."

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:56:18 -0500

“So what would it take to resist the alluring formation of our desire - and hence our identity - that is offered by the market and the mall?”

- James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom p24

"By looking carefully at the ways we mediate moral understanding to children, we may learn much about..."

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:35:27 -0500

“By looking carefully at the ways we mediate moral understanding to children, we may learn much about the kind of society we live in and will pass on to future generations… . The argument of this book [The Death of Character] is that for all of our genuine and abiding concern with the moral life of children and the moral life of the nation, the strategies we have devised aggravate rather than ameliorate the problem. Rather than restore character and its attending moral ideals, they are complicit in destroying them.”

- James Davison Hunter, The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil p9

"If vain spending of time, idleness, unprofitableness in men’s places, envy, strife, variance,..."

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 09:20:51 -0400

“If vain spending of time, idleness, unprofitableness in men’s places, envy, strife, variance, emulations, wrath, pride, worldliness, selfishness (1 Corinthians 1) be badges of Christians, we have them on us and among us in abundance.”

- John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, p56