Why should I mourn / The vanished power of the usual reign?

So one of my tasks last week was to dig through my vast treasure trove of historical, theological and philosophical essays in the hopes of finding an artifact of sheer brilliance that I can dust off, shine up a bit, and send off in an application. So you're gonna get some facinating quotes this week.

(Can I just say that I definately have to submit the one essay in which I managed not only to understand something Wolfhart Pannenberg wrote, but said something intelligible about him. I always felt bad, because his Systematic Theology was all over the syllabus.)

So let's get started.

Fidelity to the gospel lies not in repeating its slogans but in plunging the prevailing idolatries into its corrosive acids.

- Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 111.

(Speaking of which, I just uploaded one of my sermons from Dallas, on John the Baptizer and the Powers That Be.)

Want to read some creepy stuff?

“I adore war…it’s like a big picnic without the objectlessness of a picnic. I’ve never been so well or so happy. No one grumbles at one for being dirty.”

- Julian Grenfell, 1914. In DeGroot, The First World War, 45.

To die young, clean, ardent; to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others from death, or worse—disgrace—to die scaling heights; to die and to carry with you into the fuller ampler life beyond, untainted hopes and aspirations, unembittered (sic) memories, all the freshness and gladness of May—is not that cause for joy rather than sorrow?

- The Hill, a popular university text by H.A. Vachell.

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