Category: Gospel and Culture

Edwards and Lewis Quotes from Sunday

Posted on September 29, 2008

On Sunday I referred to the work of C.S Lewis and Jonathan Edwards in a sermon called Gospel Growth. Edwards helped us understand the nature of faith via the analogy of honey. Lewis helped us understand love. I talked about love in terms of its propensity to sacrifice and to give, cruciform and Gift love. Lewis is the one that developed Gift-love. Here are where those quotes came from:

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Gift-love is that which motivates a man to spend his days labouring for an income that he may store away for his children, with great possibility of him never seeing the benefits thereof. Love can only be known in the actions it prompts, as seen in the gift of His Son. This was not an emotional love, but an efficacious love, that originated with Love itself an act of the will, deliberate and undeserved.

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, IV

There is a distinction to be made between a mere notional understanding wherein the mind only beholds things in the exercise of a speculative faculty; and the sense of the heart, wherein the mind does not only speculate and behold, but relishes and feels. That sort of knowledge, by which a man has a sensible perception of amiableness and loathsomeness, or of sweetness and nauseousness, is not just the same sort of knowledge with that by which he knows what a triangle is, and what a square is. The one is mere speculative knowledge, the other sensible knowledge, in which more than the mere intellect is concerned; the heart is the proper subject of it, or the soul, as a being that not only beholds, but has inclination, and is pleased or displeased. And yet there is the nature of instruction in it; as he that has perceived the sweet taste of honey, knows much more about it, than he who has only looked upon, and felt of it.

A Crime So Monstrous

Posted on September 27, 2008

Drawing from the recent book A Crime So Monstrous, this article chronicles some of the modern-day slavery movement, which includes human traficking to the U.S. Author and journalist Benjamin Skinner puts this in perspective:

“traffickers turn up to 17,500 humans into slaves on American soil every year. Put another way, assuming you read at an average speed,” Skinner writes, “by the time you finish this chapter, another person will have entered bondage in the United States.”

The article notes that the problem in the U.S. difficult to resolve because the sex-traficking in the U.S is so intertwined with law-enforcement corruption. Perhaps more suprisingly, we are told that the high level of pornography viewing in the U.S. is a contributor:

The deeper root of the problem can be tracked back to growing acceptance and use of pornography. The United States is crawling with pornography customers. In fact, recent numbers reveal that pornography brings in an annual $12 billion—that is more than sporting events or any other entertainment venue.

To make a difference, get involed with some of the groups battling human trafficking: Free the Slaves, International Justice Mission, Shared Hope, Children of the Night, and the Call + Response movement.