Expose Quotes - page 9
If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the "high ground" which they vacated in the noon time of "modernity," it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns. Once again it has to be said that there can be no going back to the "Constantinian" era. It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society.
Lesslie Newbigin
Among the grievances of modern days, much complained of, but with little hope of redress, is the matter of receiving and paying visits, the number of which, it is generally agreed, "has been increasing, is increased, and ought to be diminished.”... Nor is this complaint by any means peculiar to the times in which we have the honour to live. Cowley was out of all patience on the subject above a hundred years ago. "If we engage,” says he, "in a large acquaintance, and various familiarities, we set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time; we expose our life to a ‘quotidian ague of frigid impertinencies,' which would make a wise man tremble to think of.”.
George Horne