"The radical message of the early racial reconciliation leaders, by the time it got to white, grassroots evangelicals, was minimized to little more than having respect for people of other races, or having a cross-race friendship. When a more radical message is pushed, as the leader of Promise Keepers, Bill McCatney, observed, the walls go up, and those in the conservative Christian subculture tune him out." --Divided by Faith 167-168

"Many view Gal 3:28 as the egalitarian counterpart to 1 Tim 2:11-12, but the two passages function differently. 1 Tim 2:11-12 speaks directly to ecclesial roles, and a conclusion about ecclesial roles can be formed directly from the passage...Interpreters draw different conclusions from 1 Tim 2:11-12 only because they interpret the passage differently...Gal 3:28 does not operate in this way; rather, some intervening logical premise must be supplied to draw a conclusion about ecclesial roles. Interpreters [Egalitarian and Complementarian] draw different conclusions from Gal 3:28 because they supply different premises." --Douglas Walker's Dissertation from Trinity Divinity school

"The power of the media lies not only in their ability to reflect the dominant racial ideology, but in their capacity to shape that ideology in the first place." --Rethinking the Color Line p20

"We need, therefore, to ask whether sometimes--I don't say always--fundamentalism is a defense of a postbiblical interpretation rather than a willingness to go back to the text and be led by it." --Howard Marshal, Beyond the Bible p31-32

"The gender-based culture of evangelicals and fundamentalists is produced and replicated by such 'subtle arrangements'...These often unspoken behavior rules and requirements are harder to document than the gendered nature of the material or ideological dimensions of culture, and they are particularly difficult for critics within the tradition to challenge because such criticism is made to seem petty." --Ingersoll "Evangelical Christian Women" p109

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhZ2tvv3mto&feature=related

“I can imagine what little kids must think—that I stole their daddy from them—I can uh—I deserve to be here.”

“Not everybody who’s caught up in the Aryan brotherhood is a bad person. Not everybody sees it for what it really is. I sure as hell didn’t. And it was all right around me—I just didn’t want to believe it—I didn’t want to see it.”

--Casper “National Geographic: Aryan Brotherhood

http://www.termpaperscorner.com/blog/chicago-citation-style/

Ezekiel 18:20

"The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."

"We live in a time where the 'joy of sex' is seen as the rightful pursuit of everyone. To be celibate, in fact, is almost to be suspect" --Out of the Shadows p33

"In the addict's world, there is an ongoing tension between a person's normal self and the addicted self. A Jekyll/Hyde struggle emerges. The addictive system is so compelling that to stop would be like death. Yet, as the system continues, the person's values, priorities, and loved ones are attacked. Sometimes, only a major crisis can restore perspective" --Out of the Shadows p27

"Mortal pride and earthly glory,
Sword and crown betray our trust;
Though with care and toil we build them,
Tower and temple fall to dust.
But God's power, hour by hour,
...is my temple and my tower."

--All my Hope on God is Founded

"discipline is not to shame or humiliate; it's to teach."

--SuperNanny Season 7 Episode 10 12:30

"Lord Jesus, your light shines within us. Let not my doubts nor my darkness speak to me. Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let my heart always welcome your love."

--song from church

"By granting these men the spirit of prophecy He raises their minds above the world, and by withdrawing it again He safeguards their humility. When the spirit of prophecy is with them they learn what they are by God's mercy. When the spirit leaves them they discover what they are of themselves."
--Gregory The Great

"These proceedings have been ironic, perplexing, unnerving, inspiring, and restorative.
how ironic that the guy I liked ended up liking my best friend
how perplexing his lack of communication, his cloak which inhibited my ability to read him
how unnerving that he never outwardly gave me a chance, that I questioned if he even was interested in being my friend
how inspiring that I learned that I'm good enough and that I don't need a guy - that this isn't the greatest desire of my heart
how restorative that I am nearer to the music than I've ever been before, that I have new confidence, which if used for the Lord's glory will brighten my unique reflection of Him"

- From a good friend's journal June 6th (yes we read the other's journals from time to time).

"Natural science, in its widest sense, aims at setting forth a coherent system of knowledge of how Nature works. The scientist is concerned not with the 'how we know' but with the 'what we know' of the objective world. He assumes from the outset that it is 'real', that it exists apart from the individual knower, is con...sistently measurable, and is a realm of law" (The Wings Of Faith p44-45).

Susanna

A story about John and Charles Wesley’s mother caught my eye while I was reading “Streams Of Living Water” by Richard Foster as part of an assignment for school. I want to know what you all think about what she did and why you think what you do.

“When Samuel was away in London on church matters for an extended period one time, his assistant did a poor job of nurturing the congregation. Consequently, Susanna decided to have Sunday evening services at home for the family, in order to bring some added spiritual influence. They gathered in the kitchen to sing psalms, pray, and read a short sermon selected from Mr. Wesley’s library shelves. Soon friends and neighbors asked to join in, and before anyone knew it, two hundred souls were crowded into Susanna’s home.

Mr. Inman, the church assistant, was insulted and scandalized, mainly because the Sunday night gatherings were outdrawing Sunday mornings. He contacted Samuel Wesley in London and protested these irregular worship services. Mr. Wesley, in turn, wrote his wife, asking her to desist. Her response was a masterful balance of deference and defiance.

Susanna began by responding to his three major objections to the meetings: these were ‘first, that it will look particular; secondly, my sex; and lastly, your being at present in a public station and character.’ She took up each objection with the most deference providing an extended and definitive answer. She then concluded, ‘If you do after all think it fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me any more that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good to souls, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ’” (244).

The meetings continued unabated.



Life Together

"The serious Christian, set down for the first time in Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period is a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dreams binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself."

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together p26-28

Our Problem of Evil

"At the outset, let us remember that every world-view--not just Christianity's--must give an explanation for an answer for evil and suffering. Either evil categorically proves that God does not exist, as the atheist avows, or evil is 'not ultimately real evil,' as the pantheist claims, or evil is most coherently explained by the Christian view of God and His purpose for creation. In short, this is not a problem distinctive to Christianity. It will not do for the challenger just to raise the question. This problem of evil is one to which we all must offer an answer, regardless of the belief system to which we subscribe."
--Ravi Zacharias Jesus Among Other Gods p108