I guess it was an inevitable question: “You have been quoting several different authors in your blog. When are you going to quote yourself?” A simple answer follows… “this week!” Here are a few of the statements made in the opening chapters of my 2015 book, The Big Picture: Building Blocks of a Christian World View which people sometimes cite back at me.
- I often have a sinking feeling that if Jesus were to revisit this planet, he would feel a need to birth something fairly different from the church as it currently exists. As I read the Gospels, I do not get the feeling that the Jesus portrayed in its pages would sit calmly through the average church service and give a beaming affirmation at the end, “This is exactly what I had in mind.” Brian Harris (pxv)
- Though forever indebted to grace, most versions of Christianity quickly lapse into a modestly disguised form of legalism. Legalism makes grace less remarkable. It reduces grace to a backstop required only by those foolish enough to leave their salvation to their deathbed, thus being unable to prove that they always had what it takes to earn their way into God’s kingdom by adherence to the stated norms of the church of the day. Brian Harris (p5)
- So often we allow revelation to be confined to the past tense. Instead of participating in God’s radical plan to make all things new, many Christians fall into the trap of championing the status quo, apparently confusing it with the agenda of God. Brian Harris (p6)
- Christianity proclaims that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. That hardly sounds like a crusade to keep things as they are. Brian Harris (p6)
- Being made in God’s image is a statement about our identity – and the identity of every other human being. It affirms that we belong to God. Brian Harris (p9)
- As humans we should not think too highly of ourselves. Even our incomprehensible disobedience was not enough to totally ruin the good world that God made. The fingerprints of the goodness of God remain everywhere. Brian Harris (p11)
As always, nice chatting…
