Status Updates From Dynamics of Spiritual Life:...

Love it when a book both affirms a lot of my thoughts while calling some out and challenging me at the same time.

We cannot tell how much of the righteousness of the kingdom will be established within ordinary history, but it is our responsibility to pray and work that that kingdom will be established on earth as it is and will be in heaven… cannot wholly distinguish its foothills from its ultimate fulfillment where there is no longer day and night, revival and decline, but only perpetual light in the face of the Lamb of God.

“As we examine the shifting balance in eschatologies during the history of the evangelical movement, we can draw several general conclusions. First, the main eschatological consensus in the church tends to vary according to the apparent success or defeat of the Christian enterprise.”

“In this century the Evangelical sector has specialized in theological and personal repentance and the "liberal" sector has specialized in social repentance. This division of labor has not worked very well.”

“Born-again racists and totally individualistic pietists at so numerous still….”

“the whole momentum of Dispensational theology moved toward a form of premillennialism which was evangelistically active but socially passive. This outlook expected the world to become increasingly corrupt and conceived of the church's main duty as witnessing to the justifying work of Christ, not making disciples whose growth in sanctification could change the world.”

“By the early 1900s a different pattern in American lay support took shape: wealthy lay people tithed their incomes to the church but quietly steered its social and political witness in directions which supported their interests. This pattern prevails today. Concern for the kingdom no longer controls our giving; the church is simply a spoke on the wheel of a wide variety of benevolent causes.”

“The social and cultural passivity of twentieth-century Evangelicalism… have to be corrected through a reinvigoration of the church's fighting spirit. As many younger voices have indicated, the automatic conformity with middle-class living standards common among Evangelicals may have to be scaled back to a simpler lifestyle so that more money can be released for God's work.”

But there is a problem more serious than mere enculturation restraining fresh artistic expression in the church and its promotion toward visibility in society. This problem is the sterilization of art by ascetic moralism and oversimplified theology.

[one] alienated from Evangelicalism can very easily conclude that the movement is a stalking-horse for conservative politics and economic reaction… to assume that Evangelicalism is offering American society a cheap fix with the opiate of the masses… offering cut-rate religion with cheap grace and minimal repentance, an agenda which certainly fits the classic profile of the false prophet.

Our innate pride, however, especially the pride which can be an incidental effect of the possession of truth, makes it all too likely that we will turn every situation into a Galatians 1 affair and never get around to 2 Timothy 2.

Today the observer walking around the American Zion and considering her ramparts sees an extensive fortress originally built by evangelicals, whose descendants are either camping outside or huddled in a few central hiding places, while nontheological mechanics control most of the buildings and battlements.

During much of the twentieth century, ecumenists have soft-pedaled the doctrinal purity of the church in order to attain its unity. But the body's tolerance can be increased only so far before we run the risk of fatal infection, which can lead to disintegration just as rapidly as the reiection syndrome.

… if the self-consciously orthodox can abandon their usual posture of intellectual self-righteousness and strike a more humble stance, admitting that doctrine is an implement of spirituality but not its ultimate goal… lead to the unity and purity of the coming church.

“the apologetic value of being able to retreat like a cuttlefish into a cloud of philosophical subtlety when one's facts are menaced may appear less desirable than the relative clarity of a demythologized faith or a secular religion which has placed a moratorium on God-talk.”

The preacher who was content to rehearse and admire doctrines without applying them to the life and world of the congregation in such a way that believers sensed the guiding control of the Holy Spirit and heard the voice of God addressing them in concrete situations, was ot for the Puritans a physician of souls, but an aesthetician or tool-salesman, displaying the instruments of healing but refusing to employ them.

“it might not be far wrong to say that the characteristic flesh of America is compounded of covetousness, gluttony, egocentric libertarianism and pride, all of which have been selectively bred into our culture because of the types of sinful people we have attracted and the behavior which our political and economic system has stressed and rewarded.”

“…social groupings have their own patterns of characteristic flesh which are extremely resistant to detection and change. These patterns are so universal within a local culture that they are as undetectable as the air we breathe and just as powerful in their effects. They are also socially reinforced, and often defended and legitimated by local mores, mythology, politics and even religious rationales.“