On Legalism and Hyper-Religiosity
The problem with legalists is that not enough people have confronted them and told them to get lost. Those are strong words, but I don’t mess with legalism anymore. … Seriously, I used to kowtow to legalists, but they’re dangerous. They are grace-killers. They’ll drive off every new Christian you bring to church. They are […]
On Living the Christian Life
… as you look to [Jesus], hoist your sails and buffet manfully the seas of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust … of suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbor. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing […]
On Confession and Forgiveness
The marvelous thing about sacramental confession is that when absolution is given by the priest as God’s representative, the offense is wiped away. We are not to dwell on it any more, but to go on afresh with our lives, knowing ourselves forgiven, restored, loved. My tendency has often been to go back and dwell […]
On Self-Worship
We do not have to act out everything we feel; that is idolatry of our own selves and does not lead to any kind of deep happiness. — Madeleine L’Engle, in Penguins and Golden Calves
On Pain
Our souls do not grow if we insulate ourselves from pain. — Madeleine L’Engle, in Penguins and Golden Calves
Why Are the Sects Growing?
The sects and fundamentalists are growing because they offer black-and-white answers to all the unanswerable questions. The frightened person is given all the rules and assured that the few people who keep the rules and accept the answers to the unanswerable questions will be saved, and everybody else will be damned. The damnation of others […]
On All Things Working Together for Good…
God doesn’t plan the horrors. They happen. But God can come into them. — Madeleine L’Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea
On God’s Mercy
But all the wickedness in the world which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea. — William Langland, as quoted by Madeleine L’Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea
This Explains SO Much About Today’s Society
A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion. —Sir Francis Bacon
On Religion
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. — The Bible, […]