The God of Remembrance

I do not mean that God would have even his closest presence make us forget or cease to desire that of our friend. God forbid! The Love of God is the perfecting of every love. He is not the God of oblivion but of eternal remembrance. There is no past with Him.

George MacDonald (1824-1905)

from: Unspoken Sermons, Series 3, The Displeasures of Jesus

Christianity or Religion?

Christianity is not a religion. For whatever is human about it, all the manifestations in which it may resemble a religion, are merely the echo or reflection of a movement that does not proceed from man or have to be carried out by him, but happens to him and has to be responded to by him, a movement by a being of an entirely different kind. Alone among all the religions, Christianity is essentially a pointer, pointing backwards and forwards and in either case upwards ... a movement that differs from all religions, all human leaps and superstructures, and is indeed opposed to all religion.

If Christianity is properly understood, that is, on the basis of the historical sources, the documentation of its origins in the Old and New Testaments -- and that, incidentally, is the task of theology -- it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the realization that, in contrast to religion, its essence is not man's arising to go to God, but God's arising to go to man....

"Christian", properly understood, means being governed by the message of Jesus Christ, the liberating discovery of God's gracious move towards humanity. But such discovery is an event, not a condition or institution, and thus is not an attribute with which human creations can be endowed or by which they can be distinguished.

Karl Barth (1963)

Kärleksbudet: Vad innebär kärleken till nästa?

Herre, vår Gud och Fader, du som har befallt oss att älska varandra, förläna oss nåd att älska varje människa som kommer i vår väg. Vi anropar din barmhärtighet för alla, men särskilt för dem som din kärlek har givit oss. Vår bön är matt och svag, men giv dem, o Herre, långt mera gott än vi bedja eller tänka. Ty din kärlek överträffar all mänsklig kärlek. Gör med dem efter din vilja, så att de alltid och allestädes står under din ledning och ditt beskydd. Hjälp dem att älska dig så att de endast vill, talar och gör sådant som behagar dig. Och låt dem till sist hinna fram till det oförgängliga livet. Dig vare ära i evighet. Amen.

Anselm av Canterbury (1033-1109)

A Puritan's View of Power

To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have the power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.

-John Owen (1616-1683)

Advice to procrastinators

You will never be younger; if not done soon it [the work] will never be done, to the end of all eternity . . . You may indeed excuse yourself and see reasons why the work should not have been done, but it will not have been done.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), Letters.