Liddell arrived in Saiochang at a time of drought, locust plague, famine, and war. Traveling by bicycle or on foot, he served as an itinerant preacher, communicating with the help of an interpreter, Wang Feng Chou, until his childhood Mandarin fluency returned.
Our journey begins in an apparently unpromising way—with temptations. We do not usually think of temptations as a place to find help. But there are some temptations that stand at the entrance. There are some temptations that even to recognize as temptations and to feel the conflict of being pulled in two directions is to have found the gateway to a new path. In the very conflict, we find our world more wonderful and more dangerous than we ever before realized.
The real feelings and opinions of the slaves were not much known or respected by their masters. The distance between the two was too great to admit of such knowledge; and in this respect Col. Lloyd was no exception to the rule. His slaves were so numerous he did not know them when he saw them.
Luwum was as concerned for the spiritual welfare of his people as he was for their physical well-being. As a leader whose own Christian experience had been shaped by the East African revival, he stressed the importance of a personal relationship with the Lord of the Scriptures for both his flock and his clergy. He frequently led evangelistic missions and preached throughout the diocese. . . .
Erasmus of Rotterdam is famously quoted as asserting that he was not willing to burn for one of Luther’s paradoxes. For Luther, the life of the Christian on earth is necessarily characterized by the presence and regular manifestation of a series of contrasting realities. His spirituality is built around these polarities that cannot be resolved.
Repentance itself is nothing else but a kind of circling; to return to Him by repentance, from whom by sin we have turned away. . . which circle consists of two things; which two must needs be two different motions. One is to be done with the whole heart; the other with it broken and rent: so as, one and the same it cannot be.
There are many, very many mistakes about Lent. People generally speak of it as a time of fasting, a season of self-denial, and so it is; but this is not all. There are many persons in the Church who have no definite idea about this holy season, whose notions fall as far short of the truth as those of persons out of the Church.
In conversation with him one day I said, “Mahatma Gandhi, I am very anxious to see Christianity naturalised in India, so that it shall no longer be a foreign thing identified with a foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national life of India and contributing its power to India’s uplift and redemption. What would you suggest that we do to make that possible?”
Jesus is praying, and the light shines on his face. We do not know that it is a prayer of agony and conflict like the prayer in Gethsemane, but we know that it is a prayer near to the radiance of God and the prayer of one who has chosen the way of death. Luke tells us that the two witnesses were conversing about the exodus which Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem: not the death alone,
Whereas, a few of our race did in the Name and fear of God, associate for the purpose of advancing our friends in a true knowledge of God, of true religion, and of the ways and means to restore our long lost race, to the dignity of men and of christians;