Compass Vol. 14 #2, Points

Points, Volume 14 #2

ONLY LIBERAL PROTESTANTS?!!
One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed, has not done so and that religion is our own sweet invention.

--Flannery O'Connor

THE (IM)POSSIBILITIES OF SPEECH
Dewi Phillips: "If I say to you I can't tell you how grateful I am, I tell you how grateful I am."

HUMPTY DUMPTY'S WORLD
In the hospital, what I will call the world of love meets the world of efficiency--the world, that is, of specialization, machinery, and abstract procedure. Or rather, I should say that these two worlds come together in the hospital, but do not meet.

--Wendell Berry

IF POEMS BE THE FOOD OF LIFE...
Mario in the film Il Postino: "Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it but to those who need it."

SO "MELLOW" AIN'T EVERYTHING, MAYBE?
Judaism stands in fundamental opposition to the pantheism that is characteristic of New Age teachings....New Age speaks of "getting in touch with one's inner voice" or "following your bliss." But "following your bliss" is the antithesis of living the Covenant.

--Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin

FEAR OF THE LORD
I sometimes think the reason that Protestants, and in particular Methodists, are more likely to believe in the "real absence" than the "real presence" is that God just scares the hell out of us.

--Stanley Hauerwas, Methodist theologian

THE POWER OF LIVELY TRANSLATIONS
Another bit of Scripture we don't recall seeing before:

"Don't worry about anything;

Instead, pray about everything;

Tell God your needs,

And don't forget to thank God for the answers!

If you do this you will experience God's Peace!"

(Philippians 4:6-7)

A LIVING THING
Hans Urs von Balthasar: "A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power."

RARE HONESTY
I was getting along fine until I stuck my neck out too far and got too famous--and then they made me V.P. and now I can't do anything.

--Harry S. Truman, January 1945

STANDING ON THIN AIR
A Spanish person speaking to Bertrand Russell: "You're a Protestant atheist and I am a Catholic atheist and we have nothing in common!"

ATHEIST: TAKE TWO
An atheist is a man [sic] who has no invisible means of support.

--John Buchan

WHAT DO THEY WANT?!!
What most Quebeckers want from Canada, even more than power, is respect. That should be easy. In fact, it may be beyond our capacity.

--Desmond Morton, Canadian historian

AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM
Martin Buber to the University of Edinburgh Theological Club: "For some thirty to forty years now, I have realized that I can't learn anything from anyone over three years of age."

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