Have You Ever Thought? Conversations with a Christian Worldview

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Quotations

The logic of an idea, once it has gained a foothold in the human psyche, has a tendency to work itself out with a relentless consistency to its ultimate con-clusions even among men of disparate cultures who have little or no contact with or knowledge of each other, but more especially so where that idea is widely accepted by a community—unless it is effectively challen-ged. And so it has been with sacerdotalism and prelacy, which even the Reformation was not able to expunge entirely from the minds of Christian men, and so the wretched harvest produced by these ideas began to grow once more before the dust thrown up by the ploughing of the Reformation had settled on the ground. And this is all the more remarkable because, as Max Weber pointed out, “every consistent doctrine of predestined grace inevitably implied a radical and ultimate devaluation of all magical, sacramental and institutional distributions of grace, in view of God’s sovereign will.”

— Stephen Perks,
The Christian Passover:
Agape Feast or Ritual Abuse?, p. 46

The Officials of the Roman Empire in time of persecution sought to force the Christians to sacrifice, not to any of the heathen gods, but to the Genius of the Emperor and the Fortune of the city of Rome; and at all times the Christians' refusal was looked upon not as a religious but as a political offence.

— Frances Legge,
Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity,
Vol, I, p. lvi.

The history of Eastern Christianity under the rule of Islam has already been written. The story is a depressing one. The history of Western Christianity under the rule of Islam has yet to be written. Whether it will ever be written may well depend on how seriously the Church in the West takes the Great Commission in the next few decades and on whether the zeal and self-sacrifice of Muslims for their jihad can be matched by the zeal and self-sacrifice of Christians for the Great Commission - indeed, whether Muslims, with their zeal and self-sacrifice, can be converted from jihad to the Great Commission.

— Stephen Perks,
"From Jihad to Great Commission"
in Christianity & Society, Vol. VIX, No. 3

Friday

Sep192014

ISBN 978-1-909145-01-6Everyone has a worldview, a set of presuppositions by means of which they interpret and understand the world. Worldviews are like spectacles through which we view the facts. If we have the wrong spectacles all the facts will be out of alignment. All the facts in the world are evidence for the truth of Christianity, but evidence only makes sense if you have the right framework. Unless we deal with a person's anti-Christian presuppositions, all the evidence in the world will not convince him of his error, because whatever evidence we present to him, he will interpret according to his unbelieving presuppositions. Christians in many Churches are constantly told from the pulpit that it is their responsibility to evangelise. More often than not this results in either guilt or frustration or both. The truth is, not every Christian is an evangelist. However, every Christian ought to be an apologist. Peter commands all believers to be "always ready to give an answer [an apologia, a reasoned defence] to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:1). My purpose on writing these dialogues is to encourage Christians to be ready to engage in such apologetics. All these dialogues relate some of my own experiences with unbelievers and some with believers. I have presented them in a conversational style because I believe this makes the subject more interesting and easier for the reader who is not used to studying.

Author: Fred R. Swarbrick

Paperback | 90 pages | £5.95 | ISBN: 978-1-909145-01-6

This book is also available as a free PDF download. Please read and observe our copyright policy.

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