Quotes about Perspective

Worldliness is always a spiritual myopia. It falls for the spirit and system of the age and fails to correct itself through the correcting lenses of the perspective of the global (the Church in other continents), the historical (the Church in other centuries), and above all, the eternal (the Word of God across all places and times). Over

Don't trust anyone over thirty," the 1960s radicals cried. "Don't trust anyone under three hundred," came Thomas Oden's wise reply.

Something has surely gone terribly wrong when Christians are the best atheist arguments against the Christian faith and Christendom their best argument for atheism.

Don't trust anyone over thirty," the 1960s radicals cried. "Don't trust anyone under three hundred," came Thomas Oden's wise reply. "Vox temporis" (the voice of the times) is no more trustworthy than "vox populi" (the voice of the people) when set against "vox dei" (the voice of God).

Biography can overwhelm philosophy in the best of us.

We live in an age in which the overwhelming majority of people appear to be comfortable with their myopia.

The only hope of success is the way of love as agape rather than eros. From this rival perspective, the secret of the search is not our "great ascent" but "the great descent" - of God toward us. Instead of the seeker finding love, love seeks out the seeker - not because the seeker is worthy of love but simply because love's nature is to love regardless of the worthiness or merit of the one loved.

The truth of the faith does not stand and fall with our defense of it.

In a post-Christian era many of our friends, neighbors, and colleague will reject God for a score of reasons, but we must live and speak that they reject God for God's sake and not because of what we have said or done that has framed God wrongly.

unbelief turns on an act of will and a habit of mind shaped by choice.

far too much Christian evangelism and apologetics is based on the assumption that almost everyone is open, interested and needy—when most people most of the time are quite simply not.

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.