There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the resilience and adaptability of Christianity throughout history, emphasizing its core message of grace and love.
In this quote, Francis Spufford illustrates how Christianity has navigated through difficult times by adapting and transforming while maintaining its fundamental beliefs in grace and love. He portrays the religion as a living organism that evolves to fit new contexts and challenges, yet its core narrative remains steadfastly focused on the triumph of love and grace over adversity.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a church service to remind congregants of the enduring power of love in challenging times.
Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue. Yet emotions are also our indispensable tool for navigating, for feeling our way through, the much larger domain of stuff that isn't susceptible to proof or disproof, that isn't checkable against the physical universe.
Taking the things people do wrong seriously is part of taking them seriously. It’s part of letting their actions have weight. It’s part of letting their actions be actions rather than just indifferent shopping choices; of letting their lives tell a life-story, with consequences, and losses, and gains, rather than just be a flurry of events. It’s part of letting them be real enough to be worth loving, rather than just attractive or glamorous or pretty or charismatic or cool.
Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby.
And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
When selflessness is seen in objects, the seed of cyclic existence is destroyed.
We are not at war against Islam.
I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons, but for political and practical reasons.
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