Richard J. Mouw > Quotes

“... no sensitive Christian can be satisfied with a distinction between righteousness and unrighteousness drawn only between communities, with each individual belonging unambiguously on one or the other side of the line. The behavior of "the righteous" is often very disappointing, while "the unrighteous" regularly perform in a manner that is much better than our theology might lead us to expect of them. Thus the need for a perspective that allows for both a rather slow process of sanctification in the Christian life and some sort of divine restraint on the power of sin in the unbelieving community. These theological adjustments to a religious perspective that might otherwise betray strong Manichean tones provide us with yet another reason for openness to a broad-ranging dialogue: Christians have good grounds for believing that their own weakness can be corrected by encountering the strengths of others.”
― Richard J. Mouw, Pluralisms and Horizons: An Essay in Christian Public Philosophy

“The recognition of a distinct 'national identity' among members of the Body of Christ can keep before us our ties with Christians who live under different secular governments, with whom we have bonds that transcend and override our commitments to governments and groups outside the church.”
― Richard J. Mouw, Political Evangelism

“The Christian community must live out it's calling in the conscious recognition that secularism is false.”
― Richard J. Mouw, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture

“For Kuyper, both of these models embody a fundamental error. The medieval perspective rightly acknowledged God's rule over all cultural activity, but it mistakenly thought that this rule was to be mediated by the church. The secularist perspective rightly wanted to liberate culture from ecclesiastical control, but it wrongly insisted that to do so was to take it out from under God's rule. Kuyper's alternative is summarized in the "not one square inch" manifesto. God's soverign rule extends over all of our lives. All that we do takes place-to use a favorite kuyperian phrase-Coram Deo before the face of God.”
― Richard J. Mouw, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture

“our civility is grounded in a genuine conviction that we have much to do by way of preparing for the city that is to come. Practicing a calm and steady humility is not merely a way of biding our time until the end-time arrives. It is itself a crucial way of anticipating the final chapter of the narrative, an important preparation for the eschaton. Indeed,”
― Richard J. Mouw, Adventures in Evangelical Civility: A Lifelong Quest for Common Ground

“Las Vegas is a counterfeit version of the New Jerusalem. And it shares something of the glorious reality that it mocks.”
― Richard J. Mouw, Consulting the Faithful: What Christian Intellectuals Can Learn from Popular Religion

“The tone of his songs was consistently celebratory: "Isn't it grand to be a Christian, isn't it grand?" singers asked one another.
Isn't”
― Richard J. Mouw, Wonderful Words of Life: Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology (The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies

“there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry ‘Mine!”
― Richard J. Mouw, Adventures in Evangelical Civility: A Lifelong Quest for Common Ground

“Many evangelicals have a difficult time adjusting to a highly pluralistic culture, and we often come across as trying to impose our standards—which”
― Richard J. Mouw, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today's World

“Our calling is to imitate Jesus in his willingness to suffer rather than to follow the ways of the powers.”
― Richard J. Mouw, Adventures in Evangelical Civility: A Lifelong Quest for Common Ground

“the land of fadeless day lies the city foursquare; it shall never pass away and there is no night there.”
― Richard J. Mouw, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today's World

“my professor got to his punch lines. In the end, Job heaves a big sigh and says, “Okay, you win. You are bigger than I am. I give up!” And then the Devil catches Job’s eye and winks at him. And Job winks back. They both know the answer now: Humor the Big Bully. UNDERSTANDING THE DIVINE SILENCE”
― Richard J. Mouw, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today's World

“Living for Jesus was the ultimate "thrill," Templeton informed his audiences. He told young men and women that Christ was "the most exciting man who's ever lived ... the most extraordinary man who's ever lived,"63 and not just a man, but God Himself.”
― Richard J. Mouw, Wonderful Words of Life: Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology (The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies

“since our fallenness has limited, perhaps even obliterated, our cognitive access to any divine ordinances that might have been discernible in the original creation, our only option is to create communities that follow the way of Jesus as set forth in the Sermon on the Mount and as displayed in his own radical willingness to take up the cross. In this kind of ethic, the only available revealed guidance for living the good life is to be found in our moral exemplar, Jesus of Nazareth. In becoming his disciples, and by immersing ourselves in the practices of Christian community, we can cultivate the virtues that he displayed in his earthly ministry. And”
― Richard J. Mouw, Adventures in Evangelical Civility: A Lifelong Quest for Common Ground