Jonathan Russell

“Bavaria, May 8, 1945.
While civilians embraced...and took to the streets around the globe...many infantrymen in Europe, brutalized and broken, sat alone with their grief or paced their rest areas in mournful silence. "There is V-E Day without, but no peace within," wrote the war's most decorated infantryman, Audie Murphy..."People were damaged," remembered Thunderbird Guy Prestia. "It was like we'd been in a car crash. There was trauma. It takes a while to get over that."..."There was great relief," recalled [Lieutenant Colonel Felix] Sparks, "but no celebrations."....It was hard to believe, hard to accept that the killing and dying were finally over. There would be no more Anzios, Salernos, or Reipertswillers. Finally, after the death of 135,576 young Americans, Europe was free.”
― Alex Kershaw, The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau

“I wished to be loved by another, but I desire no man’s pity.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“The greatest difference between present-day Christianity and that of which we read in these letters, is that to us it is primarily a performance; to them it was real experience. We are apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code or, at best, a rule of heart and life. To these men it is quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether. They do not hesitate to describe this as Christ "living in" them.

Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men's lives -- even if we could prove a motive for such reformation, and certainly the world around offered little encouragement to the early Christians! We are practically driven to accept their own explanation, which is that their little human lives had, through Christ, been linked up with the very life of God.

Many Christians today talk about the "difficulties of our times" as though we should have to wait for better ones before the Christian religion can take root. It is heartening to remember that this faith took root and flourished amazingly in conditions that would have killed anything less vital in a matter of weeks.

These early Christians were on fire with the conviction that they had become, through Christ, literal sons of God; they were pioneers of a new humanity, founders of a new kingdom.

They still speak to us across the centuries. Perhaps if we believed what they believed, we might achieve what they achieved.”
― J.B. Phillips, Letters To Young Churches: A Translation of the New Testament Epistles

“There is in Jesus Christ more merit and righteousness than the whole world has need of.”
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress