Reform, that we may preserve.
It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.
One can't found a novel theology on Nothing, and nothing is so secure a foundation as a contradiction. Look at the great successes of the past--they say their deities are the masters of all the universes, and yet that they require grandmothers to defend them, as if they were children frightened by poultry. Or that the authority that punishes no one while there exists a chance for reformation will punish everyone when there is no possibility anyone will become the better for it.
I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms.
And finally, it was Deuteronomy that brought about the historical result of Josiah's reformation.
What is needed is a move beyond tradition, nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age, a Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadist ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows to let in much-needed fresh air. . . . It is high time, for starters, that Muslims were able to study the revelation of their religion as an event inside history, not supernaturally above it. . . . Broad-mindedness is related to tolerance; open-mindedness is the sibling of peace.
The processes of secularization that followed in the wake of the Reformation continue to work themselves out in complicated ways, not only in Europe but also in North America. To make a very long and complex story short, the success of the Reformation combined with the persistence and renewal of Roman Catholicism in the 16th and 17th centuries made Christianity into an enduring, disruptive problem in new ways, layered on top of problems that already affected late medieval Christianity.
They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.
As the power of Christianity declined through the centuries that have followed the Reformation, Calvinism played a less and less important part, while the new philosophies of mechanism and rationalism correspondingly increased.
If thou least fallen into sin through violent temptations, seek speedily for repentance for it, recovery out of it, and reformation from it.
What distinguishes the arid ages from the period of the Reformation, when nations were moved as they had not been since Paul preached in Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, is the latter's fullness of knowledge of God's Word. To echo an early Reformation thought, when the ploughman and the garage attendant know the Bible as well as the theologian does, and know it better than some contemporary theologians, then the desired awakening shall have already occurred.
All reformations seem formidable before they are attempted.
Reformation is a return to the sound doctrine of the Bible. Revival is the practice of that sound doctrine under the power of the Holy Spirit.
REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.
It is altogether as worthy of God and as much becoming Him to pardon and show mercy, in case of repentance and submission and reformation, as to punish, in case of impenitency and obstinacy.
It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.
The words and lives of Christian men must be in continual process of reformation by the written Word of their God. This means that ecclesiastical traditions and private theological speculations may never be identified with the word which God speaks, but are to be classed among the words of men which the Word of God must reform.
The best things that have been written, almost, are by Catholics during the counter Reformation: Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Бvila. . . . . great stuff.
The Satanic message for this age will be reformation and self-development, while the message of God is regeneration by the power of the spirit.
