Lesslie Newbigin Quotes - Page 2

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• There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others]...We have to ask: 'What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make?

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Humility, Arrogant, Able

  Lesslie Newbigin (2013). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: SPCK Classic”, p.225, SPCK

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• The reign of God is his reign over all things.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Reign, All Things

  Lesslie Newbigin (1995). “The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission”, p.31, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• The effect of the post-Enlightenment project for human society is that all human activity is absorbed into labor. It becomes an unending cycle of production for the sake of consumption. The modern concept of "built-in obsolescence" makes this clear. The cycle of production and consumption has to be kept going, and the work of the artist or craftsman who aims to create something enduring becomes marginal to the economic order.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Artist, Order, Enlightenment

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• If the biblical story is true, the kind of certainty proper to a human begin will be one which rests on the fidelity of God, not upon the competence of the human knower. It will be a kind of certainty which is inseparable from gratitude and trust

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Gratitude, Biblical, Stories

  Lesslie Newbigin (1995). “Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship”, p.28, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Through the repeated hammer blows of defeat, destruction, and deportation, interpreted by the faithful prophets, Israel has to learn that election is not for comfort and security but for suffering and humiliation.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Blow, Israel, Faithful

  Lesslie Newbigin (1995). “The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission”, p.73, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• The necessary precondition for the birth of science as we know it is, it would seem, the diffusion through society of the belief that the universe is both rational and contingent. Such a belief is the presupposition of modern science and cannot by any conceivable argument be a product of science. One has to ask: Upon what is this belief founded?

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Belief, Birth, Argument

  Lesslie Newbigin (1988). “Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture”, p.71, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• This withdrawal of theology from the world of secular affairs is made more complete by the work of biblical scholars whose endlessly fascinating exercises have made it appear to the lay Christian that no one untrained in their methods can really understand anything the Bible says. We are in a situation analogous to one about which the great Reformers complained. The Bible has been taken out of the hands of the layperson; it has now become the professional property not of the priesthood but of the scholars.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Christian, Taken, Exercise

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• A society which believes in a worthwhile future saves in the present so as to invest in the future. Contemporary Western society spends in the present and piles up debts for the future, ravages the environment, and leaves its grandchildren to cope with the results as best they can.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Believe, Future, Grandchildren

  Lesslie Newbigin (2013). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: SPCK Classic”, p.123, SPCK

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• The whole attempt to advance the kind of consumer society that depends for its growth on the ceaseless stimulation of unlimited covetousness among the rich, while the poor majority rot in their poverty-this is surely something against which a Christian should be a nonconformist.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Christian, Growth, Majority

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• The missionary calling has sometimes been interpreted as a calling to stem this fearful cataract of souls going to eternal perdition. But I do not find this in the center of the New Testament representation of the missionary calling.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Soul, Missionary, Calling

  Lesslie Newbigin (2013). “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: SPCK Classic”, p.167, SPCK

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• Likewise, the world of action, of politics, is reduced to a conflict of views about how to keep the cycle of production and consumption going. Questions of ultimate purpose are excluded from the public world.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Views, Purpose, World

  Lesslie Newbigin (1988). “Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture”, p.32, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Modern capitalism has created a world totally different from anything known before.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Different, World, Modern

  Lesslie Newbigin (1988). “Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture”, p.111, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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