Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Not surprising...


From Love Your God With All Your Mind - The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by J. P. Moreland: Two hundred years ago, the ... Christian activist William Wilburforce (1759 - 1833) wrote a book about the nature of real Christianity and authentic spiritual growth. In a modern book about the spiritual life, especially the cultivation of spirituality in children, I doubt that the first issue addressed would be apologetics! But this is precisely what was at the forefront of Wilburforce's mind ... :



In an age in which infidelity abounds, do we observe [parents] carefully instructing their children in the principles of faith which they profess?Or do they furnish their children with arguments for the defense of that faith? They would blush on their child's birth to think him inadequate in any branch of knowledge or any skill pertaining to his station in life. He cultivates these skills with becoming diligence. But he is left to collect his religion where he may. The study of Christianity has formed no part of his education. His attachment to it - where any attachment to it exists at all - is too often not the preference of sober reason and conviction. Instead his attachment to Christianity is merely the result of early and groundless possession. ... When religion is handed down among us by hereditary succession, it is not surprising to find youth of sense and spirit beginning to question the truth of the system in which they were brought up. And it is not surprising to see them abandon a position which they are unable to defend. ...

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