Gene Edward Veith Jr.

The doctrine of vocation deals with how God works through human beings to bestow His gifts. God gives us this day our daily bread by means of the farmer the banker, the cooks, And the lady at the check-out counter. He creates new life _ the most amazing miracle of all _ by means of mothers and fathers. He protects us by means of the police officers, firemen, and our military. He creates. Through artists. He heals by working through doctors, nurses, and others whom He has gifted, equipped, and called to the medical professions.

Empathy is a special application of the imagination. The ability to imagine what it would be like to experience what someone else is experiencing can be crucial to moral sensitivity.

The popular culture gives us books that offer entertainment but no ideas. High culture gives us books that offer ideas but no entertainment. The best books manage to do both.

Psychology either tends to glorify human beings or trivialize them, leaving out the complexity of the human soul and the demands of God.

Modern Christians should not mistake our post-Victorian sense of propriety for moral purity.

It should not be possible for Christians to be disillusioned. We should have no illusions in the first place. Our faith is in Jesus Christ alone.

No one can violently attack something without taking it seriously in some way. No one attacks belief in Zeus anymore. No one gets emotional over the Flat Earth Society. Yet Christianity calls forth the deepest emotions -- even and especially in the ones who most reject it.

Many modern artists, philosophers, and theologians reject the knowledge of the past. Thus they must continually start over again from ground zero, their vision restricted to their own narrow perspectives, making themselves artificially primitive.

Propositions are true or false. Images are not.

The author relates that the word "OBSCENE" springs from the concept in Greek drama that certain actions would be performed outside the scene or off the stage. He clarifies that the Greeks did not shy away from shocking actions, but they knew that portraying them in the audience's view would drown out the emotional subtlety of the character development and ethical dilemmas.

There is a certain mysticism in the Christian's affirmation of the physical universe. There is a confidence that whatever is discovered conforms with Jesus Christ and is a manifestation of His will.

Progress in science and technology is real, but it builds on past truths without rejecting them. Computers don__ have to be re-invented in order to keep getting better; innovations expand what they already do. Knowledge accumulates, so it can increase. Scientists and engineers know this, but artists, authors, and philosophers keep trying to start over from ground zero in the humanities. Thus, they don__ really progress__hey become primitive.

Christians__ho have no patience with Darwinistic materialism__ften sound as progressive as the most ardent evolutionist. They look for __ew_ theologies, __ew_ ways of worship, and __ew_ music, being quite willing to toss out their entire __ld-fashioned_ Christian heritage.

Reading can break us out of the tunnel vision of the narrow specialty and lead us into many intriguing and important avenues of thought.

Secular humanists of every type may ridicule the Bible, but they cannot escape it; and in their obsession with change, calls for reform, doomsday warnings, and utopian visions, they continue to steal from it.

Christianity, in contrast, is for all cultures. This is a theme of the New Testament, St. John__ vision of the redeemed in Revelation 7. Christianity is for every tribe, every nation, every language, every time, for every culture. That__ really quite unique from other religions because Christ died for the sins of the world.