I see in the rising crescendo of ethnic tensions, civilization clashes and the use of religious justification for acts of terror, a clear and present danger to humanity.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the urgent threat posed by rising ethnic tensions and religiously justified violence to the well-being of humanity.
Jonathan Sacks emphasizes the dangers that arise from escalating ethnic conflicts and the misuse of religion to justify acts of terrorism. He views these issues as significant threats not only to societal harmony but to the very existence of civilization itself. By framing these tensions as a 'clear and present danger', Sacks calls for urgent attention and action to address these critical issues that could undermine humanity's future.
In practice
During a speech on peace, one might say, 'As Jonathan Sacks points out, we face rising ethnic tensions that threaten our civilization.'
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another.
A person's a person, no matter how small.
The successful memoirist [blogger] respects facts, uses them accurately, rigorously represses the human impulse to lie or embellish, but knows that truth is both different from facts and greater than facts, and not always their sum.
When I look back on what I did for the Left, I'm in a small way quite proud of some of it - I only wish I'd done more.
Panic is rare, looting is essentially insignificant, people are not terrified and trampling each other to flee from a disaster scene, but in fact are trying to manage a situation. We may in fact revert to some sort of primordial civility.
We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God's free grace.
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