Presence in the Modern World
Presence in the Modern World
Section titled “Presence in the Modern World”
Metadata
Section titled “Metadata”- Author: Jacques Ellul, Ted Lewis, and Lisa Richmond
- Full Title: Presence in the Modern World
- Category: #books
Highlights
Section titled “Highlights”- Thus we are caught between two necessities that form an unresolvable tension. On the one hand, we cannot make this world less sinful; on the other, we cannot accept it as it is. To reject either side is to reject the actual situation in which God has placed those whom he sends into the world. Just as we are caught in the tension between sin and grace, so also are we caught between these two contradictory demands. It is an infinitely painful position, it is very uncomfortable, but it is the only one that can be fruitful and faithful for the Christian’s action and presence in the world.
- the Christian’s role will be precisely not to formulate the problems as others do, not to attempt futile technical and moral solutions, but to succeed in discovering the actual spiritual difficulties that any political or economic situation involves. As for the solution, it cannot be in any way based on calculation. It can be only a way of life and the acceptance of a forgiveness, for these sins too, granted in Christ Jesus.
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- In other words, it is by living and receiving the gospel that political, economic, and other problems can be resolved. Only by accepting the tension described above can we respond to them in a human way that is not a lie or pretense.
- Christians must pursue a way of life that does not differentiate them from others but enables them to elude the influence of structures.
- The only effective attack against the structures is to succeed in evading them and living on the margin of this totalitarian society, not by rejecting it outright, but by sifting it thoroughly.
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- The first enormous fact that emerges from our civilization is that today everything has become means. The end no longer exists. We no longer know where we are heading. We have forgotten our common purposes, we have enormous means at our disposal, and we put into operation prodigious machines in order to arrive nowhere.
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