Quotes by Os Guinness

“What is undeniable is that when comforts and convenience sap our energies and idealism, inactivity secretes sloth in to our minds like a poison in the blood.”

“[Some people are called to medicine; others are called to the priesthood. Still others, like Casey Sheehan, are called to put on a uniform, pick up a gun, and defend their country in times of war.] There is joy, ... in fulfilling a calling that fits who we are and, like the pillar of cloud and fire, goes ahead of our lives to lead us... Our gifts and destiny do not lie expressly in our parents wishes, our bosss plans, our peer groups pressures, our generations prospects, or our societys demands. Rather, we each need to know our own unique design, which is Gods design for us.”

“Jesus called for nothing like this, and Pat Robertson sounded more like one of the radical imams.”

“Peter Berger, one of my mentors in sociology, remarked that the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes, ... By that he meant that the American people are as religious as the people of India-the most religious country in the world-but that American leadership is often as secular as Sweden, the most secular country in the world. And the tone deafness between these two groups causes a lot of national friction. The Trinity Forum was built upon Bergers remark-as well as upon the historical precedents set by William Wilberforce.”

“In the sorry ranks of the revisionists, the loss of anything identifiably Christian is now almost complete,”

“In the sorry ranks of the revisionists, the loss of anything identifiably Christian is now almost complete.”

“The aim is to truly reach the gatekeepers, those who are astride the doorways of influence and power,”

“Surrender to the spirit of the age,”

“At that point the creed becomes a way of saying what the infidel next door believes, too.”

Interestingly, Gods remedy for Elijahs depression was not a refresher course in theology but food and sleep... Before God spoke to him at all, Elijah was fed twice and given a good chance to sleep. Only then, and very gently, did God confront him with his error. This is always Gods way. Having made us as human beings, He respects our humanness and treats us with integrity. That is, He treats us true to the truth of who we are. It is human beings and not God who have made spirituality impractical.

The question the doubter does not ask is whether faith was really useless or simply not used. What would you think of a boy who gave up learning to ride a bicycle, complaining that he hurt himself because his bicycle stopped moving so he had no choice but to fall off? If he wanted to sit comfortably while remaining stationary, he should not have chosen a bicycle but a chair. Similarly faith must be put to use, or it will become useless.

What has happened to create this doubt is that a problem (such as a deep conflict or a bad experience) has been allowed to usurp Gods place and become the controlling principle of life. Instead of viewing the problem from the vantage point of faith, the doubter views faith from the vantage point of the problem. Instead of faith sizing up the problem, the situation ends with the problem scaling down faith. The world of faith is upside down, and in the topsy-turvy reality of doubt, a problem has become god and God has become a problem.

To come to faith on the basis of experience alone is unwise, though not so foolish as to reject faith altogether because of lack of experience ... the quality of a Christians experience depends on the quality of his faith, just as the quality of his faith depends in turn on the quality of his understanding of Gods truth.

There is no problem with the wider culture that you cannot see in the spades in the Christian Church. The rot is in us, and not simple out there. And Christians are making a great mistake by turning everything into culture wars. Its a much deeper crisis.

Thus, for followers of Christ, calling neutralizes the fundamental position of choice in modern life. “I have chosen you,” Jesus said, “you have not chosen me.” We are not our own; we have been bought with a price. We have no rights, only responsibilities. Following Christ is not our initiative, merely our response, in obedience. Nothing works better to debunk the pretensions of choice than a conviction of calling. Once we have been called, we literally “have no choice.

We are not wise enough, pure enough, or strong enough to aim and sustain such a single motive over a lifetime. That way lies fanaticism or failure. But if the single motive is the master motivation of Gods calling, the answer is yes. In any and all situations, both today and tomorrows tomorrow, Gods call to us is the unchanging and ultimate whence, what, why, and whither of our lives. Calling is a yes to God that carries a no to the chaos of modern demands. Calling is the key to tracing the story line of our lives and unriddling the meaning of our existence in a chaotic world.

Calling resists privatization by insisting on the totality of faith. Calling resists politicization by demanding a tension with every human allegiance and association. Calling resists polarization by requiring an attitude toward, and action in, society that is inevitably transforming because it is constantly engaged. Grand Christian movements will rise and fall. Grand campaigns will be mounted and grand coalitions assembled. But all together such coordinated efforts will never match the influence of untold numbers of followers of Christ living out their callings faithfully across the vastness and complexity of modern society.

We betray our modern arrogance and forget the place of mystery in Gods dealing with us.

If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger. It knows God more certainly and it can enjoy God more deeply.

The author explores the result of endless choice. It is not only overload, but a profound loss of unity, solidity, and coherence in life.