“A wounded heart does not recover in the spiritual world without a change in the visible world. Resurrection never does enthrone the spirit in the same place where it left one body, as though nothing had happened. Something has happened; death has intervened. When I experienced an infinitesimal fraction of resurrection, I learned to my amazement how severe the law was which made it impossible for me to continue among the same people in the same place.”
~from The Christian Future, page 145
“[E]very boy or girl in this country learns the three R’s. Now, perhaps they would have better minds if they learned the Greek letters and language instead, but they have no choice. This English is their heritage. Long before they could choose, their elders have moulded their minds and made them into English speakers, English readers, English writers, and accountants. The young depend on the choices made for them by their elders. An heir is not somebody who can choose what he shall inherit; if he could make his choice, he would be self-made. But, in so far as his inheritance is determined, he is an heir, and under the laws of heredity. And to his heredity a man may say either yes or no, but he is caught in this one alternative which is not creative. He does, however, determine the background of the next generation.
“Hence, one’s generation’s background is due to the previous generation’s foreground. My father’s values determined my education. And by no action of mine can I cancel out the fact that his education preceded my own judgements. I am more the product of his intent or his omissions than his own life was. I am his heir. Only my own son or students may fully reflect my own choices.”
~from The Christian Future, page 221
“Mankind writes its own history long before the historians visit its battlefields; days, festivals, holidays, the order of meals, rest and vacations, together with religiously observed ritual and symbols, are sources of political history, though rarely used by the average political or economic historian…
“It is not necessary to record the everyday life of a nation for a thousand years in order to know its aim and inspiration. The great creations of history do not reveal their deepest sense nor their soul every day. But each has its wedding day; and the words and songs, the promises and laws of this period of a nation’s life express its character viva voce and settle its destiny once and forever.”
~from Out of Revolution, page 8 & 9
“We are shareholders in the truth whenever we think. But thought is and must be, by its very essence, dialectical. Being a shareholder, the individual mind never owns the whole capital of truth. We are thrown on others; our thought provokes other and contrary thought! On the bare physical plane one individual or group can easily cope with the life of many other groups and individuals: indifference and peaceful equilibrium are possible at that level. But thought changes the peace of the world. Thought is always provoking its own contradiction. This eternal dialogue of thoughts and principles organizes humanity into schools of thought. The parties of policy, the armies of war, and the classes of interest, are embodiments of this power of the mind to act like a sword, to distinguish and to polarize, to live by paradox and conflict, by dialectical revolutions.”
from Out of Revolution, page 152
Fear makes us withdraw from the greater society and into the safety of tribalism. When the future is uncertain, people get scared and become unwilling to move out of their safety zones.
Today, the political atmosphere worldwide is uncertain and unstable. Nation-state governments are failing and few people trust them anymore. This will result in a neo-tribalism and possibly the rise of power in smaller, local governments like the city-state.
No one can ever depend on human governments, but we can always depend on the stability of the kingdom of Jesus.
“[Thus] the supreme gift of Christianity; it show[s] that the fear of death need not force man into the narrow cycle of any given community [tribalism]. In place of pagan dividedness it created a universal pedigree for man that transcends all partial ends and beginnings, and measures history from the end of time.” ~ERH
Pursuit of Percipience 