Good News Quote #6

From Chapter One, Why You Don't Have to Hear God's Voice in Your Heart: Or, How God Really Speaks Today.

The first time I realized how seriously anxious the new evangelical theology can make people, I was reading a student's paper [about revelation] [...] The problem with revelation, my student wrote, was that you can never really tell if it's the voice of God. For how do you know which voice you're hearing is really God's voice? And if you can't tell it's God's voice, then how can God reveal anything? I realized pretty soon that she wasn't talking about the word of God in holy Scripture. That's just not what the term "revelation" meant for her. It meant a voice she was supposed to listen for in her own heart. And her anguish was: how can you tell whether you're listening to the right voice? How can you be sure you're not mistaking your own voice for God's voice? How do you know?

Good News Quote #5

From the Introduction: Why Trying to Be Christian Makes Us Anxious.

We're all in this together, which means part of our job is to keep reminding each other about the Beloved, the Bridegroom who is ours, who is also the glorious one whose coming we await. Which is another way of saying: it's our job to keep preaching the gospel of Christ to one another. We don't stop needing to hear this good news just because we've become Christians. This good word, the gospel of Christ, is the bread of life that feeds our souls, because it is the way we keep receiving Jesus Christ every day. It is our daily bread, so we need to keep hearing it and feeding on it in our hearts by faith.

Good News Quote #4

From the Introduction: Why Trying to Be Christian Makes Us Anxious.

To everyone who reads this book, I say: don't believe any of this just because I'm saying it. Please do think critically -- and that includes thinking critically about what I say in this book. Above all, search the Scriptures to see if these things are so, like the Jews and Gentiles who first heard the gospel in Berea (Acts 17:11). Bad theology cannot stand up against the Scriptures, and does not fare well under the gaze of critical thinking either. But truth is different: if what you believe is true, it can stand up to critical thinking and Scripture will confirm it. So if you seriously believe your faith is true, you don't need to be afraid to think critically.

Good News Quote #3

From the Introduction: Why Trying to Be Christian Makes Us Anxious.

Pastors and other Christian leaders have been taught to use these techniques and get you to use them too. They do this with good intentions, thinking that this kind of "practical" and "relevant" teaching will transform you and change your life -- precisely the kind of thing that consumerist religion always promises to do. Just look at the books on the self-help shelf in any bookstore: they all say they'll change your life! And the same thing with the New Age spirituality shelf, and the Christian spirituality shelf too. They're all competing in the same market.

Good News Quote #2

From the Introduction: Why Trying to Be Christian Makes Us Anxious.


The New Evangelical Theology
Every era in the history of Christianity has its own dangers and failures, which include its own particular ways of distorting God's word. This book is about the distortions of our time, as found in a new theology that has more or less taken over American evangelicalism in recent years. [...]


They are the words of what you might call a "working theology," which is not an academic theory but a basis for preaching and discipleship, prayer and evangelism and outreach. It's a theology that tells people how to live. It gives people practical ideas and techniques they're supposed to use to be more spiritual.

Good News Quote #1

From the Introduction: Why Trying to Be Christian Makes Us Anxious

"Do not be anxious about anything," says Scripture (Phil. 4:6). The problem is: this makes us anxious! We have enough things to be anxious about already in life, and now we have to worry in addition about how to manage not to be anxious about any of it. And so the way we respond to this word from God, which is clearly meant to comfort us, actually adds a whole extra dimension to our burdens.

Introducing: Good News for Anxious Christians

Hello to everyone who still reads this blog!

First, I want to apologize for delaying the posting of the last few The Four Loves quotes. They are up according to the date they should have been posted on, but didn't actually make it up until my Spring Break.

For the next term, I'll be recounting the single book that has most changed my views during my college years, one that I've already recommended to many Christians, particularly those who have been Christians for a while. There are some misstatements that seep into our thinking from being in the church a while that just aren't true, and this book is both a counter to that and a reminder to all of us what the real gospel is. The book is Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don't Have to Do by Philip Cary (2010).

There are ten chapters, and I'll be sharing my favorite quotes from each chapter, one per week. Feel free to read along with the book this term, or just to enjoy these choice snippets. I'll start posting tomorrow.