“Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.”
– G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910
Making the world old
“Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision; instead we are always changing the vision.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
Desperate optimists
“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Introduction to The Defendant
Criticize yourself
“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Sidelights on New London and Newer New York
Extreme repentance
The adjective extreme has become popular in recent years. People are proud of being extreme. They engage in extreme sports, listen to extreme music, and watch “Extreme Makeover.” Church youth groups even called themselves “Generation X-Treme,” which gives you an idea of how long the word has been popular in popular culture, since the oldest examples of Generation X are now over 40.
Impartiality or ignorance?
“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.”
– G.K. Chesterton, The Speaker, 12/15/00
Excusable disobedience
How many times have you heard a Christian say, “Well, I really shouldn’t, but…” We often say this about dessert. I’ve been thinking about a former church, whose members sometimes said this about dessert. Even though they never said it about the Bible, when I look back, I get the sense that if we just couldn’t manage to obey the Bible right now, that would have been okay in our church. Really, if we felt we wanted to do something, nothing could have constrained us. We said we wanted to obey God in everything, and prided ourselves in that. But we could leave our wives if we felt the Spirit prompting us. A few of us did.
Porn creep
Wikipedia says that porn creep is about sexually explicit content entering American pop culture. It was outrageous forty years ago, but we must not complain about it now, because we might sound prudish.
It reminds me of the common arguments for why society should allow anything that was banned until now, such as homosexuals or women in combat. The common argument is not that our society would be better and happier if we didn’t ban it. The common argument is that it’s been going on for a long time. For example, historians will tell you that some women and some homosexuals have served in early American battles. Pornography has been around for thousands of years, holding an important place in many dead civilizations.
By that reasoning, everything will creep. Everything will become acceptable, given enough time.
I don’t accept that reasoning. Time can’t turn wrong into right.
God would never make you uncomfortable.
Today’s heresy is related to my theory of proportional discipleship, that no Christian’s devotion to God should be more than one standard deviation above society in general. Today’s heresy suggests that God is bound by a similar rule. He will never say anything or ask you to do anything that’s more than one standard deviation outside your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is sacred and God will never violate it. Continue reading “God would never make you uncomfortable.”
Exhilaration
“The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.”
– G.K. Chesterton, A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901