A new book by Chuck Colson

I just finished reading a new book by Charles Colson called The Faith. Here the author covers major doctrines of the Faith including the existence of God, the fact that He has spoken to us, the Fall and original sin, the incarnation, the cross and the atoning death of Christ, the bodily resurrection, God's sovereignty, the Trinity, the church, and Christian living. That's a lot to tackle in just over 200 pages, but Colson does an excellent job. I wanted to share with you a few of his thought-provoking comments:

"... contrary to the public misconceptions about Christianity today, the Christian Church and the truth that it defends are the most powerful life- and culture-changing forces in human history."

"Critics say we're trying to impose our views on American life -- that we want to create a theocracy, or a government run by the church. But this is absurd... Christianity gave the very idea of separation of church and state to the West."

"The challenges of anti-theism and radical Islam could not come at a worse time for the church, because most Christians do not understand what they believe, why they believe it, and why it matters."

"Christians must see that the Faith is more than a religion or even a relationship with Jesus; the Faith is a complete view of the world and humankind's place in it. Christianity is a worldview that speaks to every area of life."

"Evidence that points toward the intelligent design of the universe increases the probability that God is."

"I would ask Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and company [noted atheistic writers], if this book [the Bible] is so evil, how has it survived all of these years? Why has it been the bedrock of forming the most humane civilization in history? How does it continue, if it is mean-spirited, to spread love around the world and turn hard-hearted criminals into gentle lambs? How could reading it have resulted in such people as Augustine and St. Francis? Why would the Chinese, in the midst of atheistic madness, turn to it as their refuge?"

"Richard Dawkins was asked in an interview... whether good and evil have no meaning. Dawkins replied, 'even the question you’re asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil -- I don't believe there is hanging out there anywhere something called good and something called evil. ' The attacks of 9/11 are not intrinsically evil, and bringing relief to tsunami victims is not intrinsically good? Preposterous."
"If evangelicalism has fallen into the trap of cultural Christianity, replacing truth with therapy and creating a feel-good belief, it is no surprise it has lost the drama of the greatest event in human history. The answer isn't to discard doctrine, however; it is to revitalize it."

"Without a basis for morality, no moral consensus can be reached, which is why we are in an ongoing and increasingly strident culture war."

"If people are not guided by conscience and self-restraint, government inevitably becomes increasingly coercive to stave off chaos. That's why our laws are proliferating as never before."

"Human responsibility is misunderstood, chaos results, and human hubris leads to tragically flawed utopian experiment."

"The revolutionary nature of God's invasion of our world is far more significant than all the other invasions of history taken together."

"All through human history... kings, princes, tribal chiefs, presidents, and dictators have sent their subjects into battle to die for them. Only once in human history has a king not sent his subject to die for him, but instead, died for his subjects."

"We find it [the Trinity] baffling. But many concepts we encounter in life are baffling and yet valid. Just think of higher mathematics and the complexity of very advanced physics. Since we're talking about the nature of God, how could a true understanding not present similar difficulty?"

"We have two divinely authorized commissions. The first is well-known, the Great Commission... but the second is equally important. It is to bring the righteousness of God to bear on all of life, to take dominion, to carry out the tasks we are given in the first chapters of Genesis, to bring a redeeming influence into a fallen culture. I called this the Cultural Commission."

"How often have you challenged people to come to Christ and heard them say, ' But I'm not good enough. ' This is yet another form of pride -- our lurking suspicion that one day we will be good enough."

"True Christianity is countercultural. It means death to self, giving up self-control -- and personal autonomy, as we know, is the thing postmodern thought prizes more than anything else. True faith means putting the cause of Christ and the needs of others ahead of self."

"The church is seen as the conveyor of various commodities, a spiritual retailer, God's Gap. Christians need to change our whole vocabulary. We can't talk about the church is a building or a place we go. We are the church."

"Harvard professor Robert Putnam is alarmed over the loss of community in American culture... Putnam observes that the best example for assimilation in community today is being achieved by evangelical megachurches, where there is ethnic and cultural diversity in one community. Once again, Christianity rises to the challenge of strengthening culture."

"Daily we hear the hue and cry about conservatives wanting to impose their views on an unwilling society... that fearsome phrase goes back to the 1860 political campaign when Lincoln's opponents charged he was trying to impose his will upon slaveholders. We can be grateful he did and freed the slaveholders as well as the slaves from a morally corrupt and corrupting institution ... Christians do not impose; they propose a vision of a culture of life."

"The secularist view reduces the body to a machine that's to be judged by its usefulness... it's a short step from there, at least logically, for the powerful to say that people whose bodies are of no use to them or society should be discarded."

"Without a biblically based set of ethics rooted in the sanctity of life, without the established natural order clearly expressed in law and practice, we are left to the tender mercies of those in authority. And we embrace that at our certain peril."

"Professor Peter Singer argues for infanticide and euthanasia as good things... and if life has no inherent worth, he's logically correct. So why don’t we get rid of these burdensome kids? Because the truth about life is understood – the imago Dei is in us, even when we don't want to acknowledge it."

"So how in the world do so many people these days talk about the Christian faith and its doctrines as being dry and brittle?... one answer is found in the church’s failure to teach what the faith is... Second, we have become so self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and materialistic that we’re blind to what makes life worth living... Third, many Westerners today, I believe, are intimidated by cultural pressures.... Fourth, our culture exalts progress -- newer is better... Finally, in this liberal, enlightened, tolerant age, all religions are seen as alike."

"Anyone who goes through life fearful of offending his neighbors or being labeled an extremist will never have the joy of knowing that he has contributed to the transformation of another's life. He'll never experience the incredible excitement of knowing that the God who created him has His hand upon him and His Holy Spirit within him, that he's being empowered to carry to the world the most exciting story ever told."

"Christianity created Western civilization -- the most dynamic culture the world has ever known. Monasticism played a role in the development of capitalism... both Eastern fatalism and Islamic theocracy under a central spiritual leader kept the East and the Islamic Middle East from creating truly dynamic economic systems... The belief of Christians in reason also drove the scientific revolution... Christian influence led to the establishment of the first universities... The common moral standards that Christianity engendered in Western culture were crucial."

"Europe has lost its ability to employee reason against reason’s enemies [Islamic terrorists] because it has lost the authority for reason, that is, its faith. It is left with nothing but the tattered remains of the belief in the rationality of humans. But reason alone, without faith, cannot deal with today's clash of civilizations... the problem in Islam is that it is a blind faith that neither supports reason nor is informed by it... so we have a dilemma: in the West, reason alone without faith leads to chaos; in Islam, faith alone without reason leads to tyranny... This is why orthodoxy matters, for a renewal and strengthening of the orthodox Christian faith can provide not only joy and meaning for Christians but a bulwark of sanity and reason against barbarism."

"The orthodox Christian faith is the one source that can renew culture because it relies on a wisdom far beyond humankind’s own that can yet been known by reason. It constantly calls people to the practice of virtue and charity guided by this greater wisdom."

"Christianity does not seek to impose, it proposes. The Gospel is the great proposal: come to the wedding feast, one and all -- black, white, rich, poor, East, West, Muslim, Jew, Christian -- all are welcome, and it’s never too late."