Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week

by Jimmy Hopper

Christopher Dawson is a renowned historian who is not much read in academic circles because, though his specialty is European history, his focus is not so much on materialistic issues but on spiritual issues. The quote below comes from his very scholarly book, Dynamics of World History. The thought came to me through Elder Bob Prince’s devotional in last night’s Session meeting of the unstable nature of life as he spoke of the immutability, the unchanging nature and character of God as opposed to the “unintelligable chaos” of life. Dawson addresses this in History. Read and consider this quote and give us your thoughts and comments on how being a Christian brings us, if it does, to this viewpoint regarding history and even how we are impacted in our day to day lives.

It seems to me that the Christian is bound to believe that there is a spiritual purpose in history—that it is subject to the designs of Providence and that somehow or other God’s will is done. History is not a mere unintelligible chaos of disconnected events.

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week August 23, 2007

by Jimmy Hopper

Below is the Quote of the Week. It is from C. S. Lewis and his book, God in the Dock. It has to do with religion and society; religion and man; and ultimately luke-warm, societal religion of the kind we’ve been accustomed to in the South.

Give us your thoughts in the comments!

The decline of “religion” is no doubt a bad thing for the “world.” By it all the things that made England a fairly happy country are, I suppose, endangered; the comparative purity of her public life, the comparative humanity of her police, and the possibility of some mutual respect and kindness between political opponents. But I am not clear that that it makes conversions to Christianity rarer or more difficult; rather the reverse. It makes the choice more unescapeable. When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Modred: middle things are gone.

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week - August 10, 2007

by Jimmy Hopper

While thinking about the previous post about worship, old and new, and the condition of the evangelical church in general, I thought of the following quote by Francis Schaeffer from The God Who is There back in the seventies. Here it is so give us your thoughts about it:

At first acquaintance, this concept, “I do not ask for answers; I just believe,” gives the feeling of spirituality and it deceives many fine people. These are often young men and women who are not content only to repeat the phrases of the intellectual or spiritual status quo. They have become rightly dissatisfied with a dull, dusty, introverted orthodoxy given only to pounding out a few well known clichés. The new theology sounds spiritual and vibrant and they are trapped. But the price they pay for what seems to be spiritual is high, for to operate in the upper story using undefined religious terms is to fail to know and function on the level of the whole man. The answer is not to ask these people to return to the poorness of the status quo, but to a living orthodoxy which is concerned with the whole man; including the rational and intellectual, in his relationship to God.

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week: August 3, 2007

by Jimmy Hopper

Below you will find the quote of the week. This quote is from a favorite author of many of us, Francis Schaeffer, whose L’Abri Fellowship was the first ministry I remember that sought to engage the culture. This is from Dr. Schaeffer’s book, Death in the City. It speaks to an essential fact of our existence, that we, despite our fallenness, are made in the image of God. Give us your comments and discussion about this topic.

I am convinced that one of the great weaknesses in evangelicalism is that we have lost sight of the biblical fact that man is wonderful. We have seen the unbiblical humanism that surrounds us, and, to resist this in our emphasis on man’s lostness, we have tended to reduce man to a zero. Man is indeed lost, but this does not mean that he is nothing. We must resist humanism, but to make man a zero is neither the right way nor the best way to resist it. You can emphasize that man is totally lost and still have the biblical answer that man is really great. In fact, only the biblical position produces a real and proper humanism. Naturalistic humanism leads to a diminishing of man and eventually to a zeroing of man. But the Christian position is that man is made in the image of God and, even though he is now a sinner, he can do those things that are tremendous – he can influence history for this life and the life to come, for himself and for others.

Let us hear from you.

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week: July 26th, 2007

by Jimmy Hopper

Our quote this week speaks to those of the postmodern generation who have glimpsed the abyss and despair because of it. It is from a teenager quoted in Walter Truett Anderson’s book, Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be:

I belong to the Blank Generation. I have no beliefs. I’m lost in this vast, vast world. I belong nowhere. I have absolutely no identity.

This is a tragedy beyond words and I believe it to be all around us. Does the church understand and respond? Give us your thoughts both of this phenomenon; how we got here, and your ideas of what the Christian response should be to it.

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week: July 19, 2007

by Jimmy Hopper

Our quote of the week is below. Consider it and let everyone know your thoughts, opinions, etc. This quote is from C. S. Lewis from an essay entitled “Democratic Education” in his book Present Concerns: Essays.

The demand for equality has two sources; one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest of human emotions. The noble source is the desire for fair play. But the other source is the hatred of superiority.

What are your thoughts on this idea; and how does it play out in your experience in society and in Lewis’ subject, education in a democracy?

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week

by Jimmy Hopper

Below is our second “Quote of the Week”, an observation on Christianity and/or life. Feel free to register your thoughts about it, positive or negative.This week’s quote is from “Puritans and Prigs,” an essay in The Death of Adam by Marilynne Robinson:

A Puritan confronted by failure and ambivalence could find his faith justified by the experience, could feel that the world had answered his expectations. We have replaced this with an unsystematic, uncritical, and in fact, unconscious perfectionism-the idea that society can and should produce good people, that is, people suited to life in whatever imagined optimum society, who then stabilize the society in its goodness so that it produces more good people, and so on.

Have at it.

Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week

by Jimmy Hopper

Each week, a quote pertinent to life and Christianity will be posted on the Riverblog. Your approval or disapproval of the quote or your thoughts regarding it are welcomed, so have at it.

The quote of the week this week is from Peggy Noonan in her book, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness:

I think that we have lost the old knowledge that happiness is overrated—that, in a way, life is overrated. We have lost somehow a sense of mystery—about us, our purpose, our meaning, our role. Our ancestors believed in two worlds, and understood this to be the solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short one. We are the first generation of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth, and our search for it has caused such unhappiness. The reason is that if you do not believe in another, higher world, if you believe only in the flat material world around you, if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness— if that is what you believe, then, when the world does not give you a good measure of its riches, you are more than disappointed ; you are in despair.