Helping the poor and caring for the creation often go hand in hand. From Scott Sabin of Plant With Purpose: The Connection Between the Poor and the Earth. Here are a couple quotes: I frequently get asked how we, as Christians, choose between caring for the poor and caring for creation, as if we have …
Category: Quotes
Three Piper quotes
Here are some quotes from pastor and author John Piper: Sheer existence is, perhaps, the greatest mystery of all. What God has made is like a toy compared to the complexity and depth of who God is. All the sciences that scratch the surface of the created universe are mere ABCs compared to Christ's exhaustive …
Spiritual growth in this life
“This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is [the] road; …
C.S. Lewis on Progress
From Mere Christianity: We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the …
Life Together quotes #2
Last week, I gave a few quotes (here) from the first two chapters of Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who was executed by the Nazis in the final days of World War 2. Here are quotes from the rest of the book: Chapter 3 -- The Day Alone But silence before …
Life Together quotes
I'm re-reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, subtitled "The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community." At 122 pages, it is not a long book, but it is a gem. I know that Bonhoeffer was a bit liberal theologically, but the Christ-centeredness of his writings puts to shame much of what goes on in Evangelicalism today. …
For the Beauty of the Earth
Last year I ran a series of posts with quotes from For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care by Steven Bouma-Prediger. This book develops a Biblical view of creation care that is neither Earth-centered nor man-centered, but God-centered. Because I have new readers of The GeoChristian, I periodically recycle previous …
Need vs. greed
The world has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. -- Mahatma Gandhi Grace and Peace
Good conservative quotes on the environment
I've been involved in a discussion over at Cranach about the battle for the soul of the conservative movement: Conservative civil war. I threw in a few quotes from noted conservatives to point out that there is nothing conservative about allowing pollution and degradation of the Earth. "While I am a great believer in the …
Continue reading Good conservative quotes on the environment
Good observations
Scientists don't have to be right on everything to make a lasting contribution. Good observations tend to endure longer than interpretations. From Winter, J.D., An Introduction to Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, p. 424. This is from Chapter 21: "An Introduction to Metamorphism," and referred to the 19th-20th century geologist George Barrow, who first described metamorphic …
Good oak
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue. To avoid the second, …
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dead at 89
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died yesterday, at the age of 89. I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich back in high school and volume one of The Gulag Archipelago in college. These books portray the savage brutality that is all too common in human experience, and yet offer glimpses of hope as well. Here …
Earth Day 2008
Earth Day is coming on April 22nd. Here's a quote to get us thinking Biblically about our stewardship of the Earth: "There is one ultimate owner in the universe, God. All others are trustees." --John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, p. 89 Grace and Peace
Christ-centered Christianity, from beginning to end (Part 3 — Jerry Bridges)
THE GOSPEL IS FOR BELIEVERS Jerry Bridges has a great book on Christ-centered, gospel-centered Christianity entitled The Discipline of Grace. I haven't completed my list of "top ten Christian books" but this one will probably be on it. Bridges wrote an article for Modern Reformation magazine called Gospel-Driven Sanctification. Here are a few quotes from …
Continue reading Christ-centered Christianity, from beginning to end (Part 3 — Jerry Bridges)
Pollution and the Death of Man
I recently finished re-reading Pollution and the Death of Man by Francis Schaeffer. If you read only one book on why Christians should care about nature, this is the book. It is short, and fairly easy reading (by Schaeffer standards). It is not a book about "50 ways to be green;" rather it lays the …
“I looked at the Christian community and saw ugliness”
A story from Pollution and the Death of Man, by Francis Schaeffer: Some years ago I was lecturing in a certain Christian school. Just across a ravine from the school there was what they called a "hippie community." On the far side of the ravine one saw trees and some farms. Here, I was told, …
Continue reading “I looked at the Christian community and saw ugliness”
For the Beauty of the Earth — Chapter 7
In Chapter 7 of For the Beauty of the Earth, author Steven Bouma-Prediger gives ten arguments for why we should "worry about spotted owls and the Pacific yew." All of his arguments have validity to some degree---the author points out weaknesses of some arguments---but I'll focus on the ones that I think are strongest for …
Wisdom from Sally Brown
I was looking for a quote from the "Peanuts" character Sally Brown. These are from her reports written for school: When writing about Church History, we have to go back to the very beginning. Our Pastor was born in 1930. This is my report on Rain. Rain is water which does not come out of …
Following Jesus
From the introduction to The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: When the Bible speaks of following Jesus, it is proclaiming a discipleship which will liberate mankind from all man-made dogmas, from every burden and oppression, from every anxiety and torture which afflicts the conscience. If they follow Jesus, men escape from the hard yoke …
For the Beauty of the Earth — Chapter 6
Chapter 6 of For the Beauty of the Earth by Steven Bouma-Prediger is "What kind of people ought we be?" In this chapter, the author develops seven ecological virtues: 1. Act so as to preserve diverse kinds of life. Biodiversity is an intended result of God's wise and orderly creative activity. Creatures exist to praise …
GeoChristian 