By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of staying true to one's values and beliefs rather than chasing trends, suggesting that this pursuit can lead to a loss of identity and purpose.
Os Guinness warns against the dangers of prioritizing relevance over faithfulness, arguing that in trying to redefine ourselves to fit modern expectations, we risk losing our core identity and authority. He asserts that true relevance comes from a commitment to one's faith and values, rather than a superficial adaptation to contemporary culture. This pursuit of irrelevance, driven by a desire to appear more appealing, ultimately detracts from the essence of who we are and the principles we stand for.
In practice
In a seminar about maintaining personal integrity in a changing world, this quote can highlight the importance of faithfulness.
The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes.
In other words, we are never freer than when we become most ourselves, most human, most just, most excellent, and the like.
We betray our modern arrogance and forget the place of mystery in God's dealing with us.
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.
Either we conform our desires to the truth or we conform the truth to our desires.
At the supreme moment of his dying Jesus so identified himself with men and the depths of their predicament and agony that no man can now sink so low that God has not gone lower.
Repentance is the key with which we can unlock the prison from inside. We hold that key within our hands, and agency is ours to use it.
The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.
All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, a chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. And every chapter must be translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall live open to one another
Race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident,real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive.
Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
To be a mass tourist, for me,...is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.
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