Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.
Interpretation
Life is chaotic, and our understanding of theology must be applied even in difficult situations.
This quote by Charles Colson emphasizes that life is inherently messy and complex, filled with challenges and uncertainties. In such a tumultuous existence, it is vital to practice and embody one's theological beliefs, integrating them into everyday situations rather than retreating to simplicity or avoidance. The quote encourages engagement with life's messiness rather than seeking escapism.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming adversity, this quote highlights the importance of faith in challenging times.
The life function of [the local church] is to love the God who created it - to care for others out of obedience to Christ, to heal those who hurt, to take away fear, to restore community, to belong to one another, to proclaim the Good News while living it out. The church is the invisible made visible.
Moral crusaders with zeal but no ethical understanding are likely to give us solutions that are worse than the problems.
Tolerance once meant that we could use our reason to discern good and evil in open debate. Today tolerance has been used to call good evil and evil good.
People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well
One of the most wonderful things about being a Christian is that I don't ever get up in the morning and wonder if what I do matters. I live every day to the fullest because I can live it through Christ and I know no matter what I do today, I'm going to do something to advance the Kingdom of God.
I learned one thing in Watergate: I was well-intentioned but rationalized illegal behavior. You cannot live your life other than walking in the truth. Your means are as important as your ends.
You ought to love all mankind; nay, every individual of mankind. You ought not to love the individuals of your domestic circles less, but to love those who exist beyond it more. Once make the feelings of confidence and of affection universal, and the distinctions of property and power will vanish; nor are they to be abolished without substituting something equivalent in mischief to them, until all mankind shall acknowledge an entire community of rights.
[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.
If I am against the condition of the world, it is not because I am a moralist - it is because I want to laugh more.
Let this be the criterion always: anything that makes you festive, anything that gives you celebration, anything that makes you dance and sing to such an extent that you disappear in your dancing, in your singing, in your celebration... is the only true religion I know of.
There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.
It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.
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