“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.
When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” ~ Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
by St. Peter of Damascus –
If you fall, rise up. If you fall again, rise up again. Only do not abandon your Physician, lest you be condemned as worse than a suicide because of your despair. Wait on Him, and He will be merciful, either reforming you, or sending you trials, or through some other provision of which you are ignorant.
For the devil is in the habit of promoting in the soul whatever he sees is in accordance with the soul’s own disposition, whether this be joy or self-conceit, distress or despair, excessive toil or utter indolence, or thoughts and actions that are untimely and profitless, or blindness and unreflecting hatred of all that exists.
Quite simply, he inflames in the soul whatever material he finds there already, so as to do it as much harm as he can, even though in itself the thing may be good and acceptable to God, provided that it is used with due restraint by one who is able to judge things and to discern the intention of God hidden in the six passions that surround him – those, that is, above him and below, to his right and to his left, within him and without. [Read more…]
“Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness.
It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power – it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.” ~ C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
by Chris Banescu –
“If you never chase God out of your house, your soul, and your heart, it is the last and greatest martyrdom.” ~ Fr. Calistrat Chifan
We often think of Christian martyrs as men and women who lived long ago and courageously gave up their lives in defense of their faith. We think of saints and disciples who were fed to the lions, tortured, maimed, burned alive, dismembered, or slaughtered for proclaiming Christ as Lord and Savior or refusing to renounce Christianity.
We also witness similar modern day martyrdom of Christians living in the Middle East, Africa, and China. Like their ancient brethren these innocents are persecuted, shot, decapitated, tortured, blown up, burned alive, and murdered for simply being Christian or daring to publicly proclaim the Gospel.
Few of us would think of modern Christians living in North America, South America, Europe, Russia, Australia, or other parts of the world, where there’s no widespread oppression or persecution of the faithful, as doing anything worthy of the title “martyr.” We have freedom and religious liberty to worship God as citizens or residents of secular democracies or constitutional republics, where Christianity is either protected (in Russia, Romania, and a few other Eastern European countries) or tolerated, at least for now (in other Western countries). [Read more…]
In his timeless writings C. S. Lewis cautioned us about the battle between faith and reason versus emotion and imagination that frequently rages in our hearts and minds. He wisely warned that intense emotions can destroy our faith in what we already know to be true. Lewis counseled us that teaching our moods “where they get off” was a necessary virtue of being a good Christian or even a “sound atheist.”
In our progressive mainstream culture where rampant emotionalism and subjective feelings have been substituted for reason, logic, and common sense, his wisdom is more relevant and applicable than ever.
Key Points:
Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, Rather than a fool in his folly. (Proverbs 17:12)
by C.S. Lewis –
There is no question of what we can make of Him; it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us.
“What are we to make of Jesus Christ?” This is a question, which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of “How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this Man?”
This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of His moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity. In fact, I find when I am arguing with very anti-God people that they rather make a point of saying, “I am entirely in favour of the moral teaching of Christianity” — and there seems to be a general agreement that in the teaching of this Man and of His immediate followers, moral truth is exhibited at its purest and best. [Read more…]