“What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“This kind of thing is why more and more Christian parents are concluding that they cannot afford to keep their children in public schools. Some tell themselves that their children need to remain there to be “salt and light” to the other kids. As popular culture continues its downward slide, however, this rationale begins to sound like a rationalization. It brings to mind a father who tosses his child into a whitewater river in hopes that she’ll save another drowning child.”
― The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation
― The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation
“Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time.”
― Prayer for Beginners
― Prayer for Beginners
“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken. And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“Nationalism is tribalistic, triumphalist, idolatrous, exclusivist and violates justice. But patriotism is an expression of devotion to country that is defined by justice. In other words, patriotism is love expressed to the national community, but it is love properly measured and applied. Patriotism acknowledges a proper place for devotion, loyalty, gratitude and sacrifice for one’s country. But patriotic expressions do not exclude others by necessity. They only do so if those exclusions are just—necessary for the protection of the whole. Koyzis wrote, “We are here referring to that community of citizens created by political power but deepened in the development of a shared commitment to, and love of that community. . . . Such loyalty is not idolatrous worship of a nation; rather, it is a limited affection for a community of fellow citizens.”
― American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea
― American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea
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