So, I had better just spit it out.  Some of you have contacted me to let me know that you are waiting on me to finish my thought.   :) 

What I plan to do from time to time this year is to post some great quotes occasionally from books I have read.  Some of these might be books written by penned by Christians.  Some might not be penned by Christians.  All of them will be interesting.  All of them will encourage us to grow in our Christian faith.

Tertullian was an early Christian who—even though he was well-versed in the pagan literature of his surrounding world—scorned the notion that such literature had any benefit for Christians.  His famous question was “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”  His question anticipated a definite answer: Nothing.*
But some other early figures in the history of Christianity took a different position.  I’ll tell you about them very soon.

In some ways, the question for us to ponder might be: What’s my attitude toward books, movies, or music that is not “Christian”?  Do they have anything to offer me?  Is there anything redeemable in them?  It probably isn’t hard to guess my position, but don’t think Tertullian was completely off target.

-RCW
* There is certainly need to take Tertullian's words within their context and remember that in particular he was speaking not against learning, but mainly against heretical philosophical systems and speculations that lacked any real standard for resolving disputes.  One website, www.earlychurch.org.uk, has a helpful explanation (and defense) of Tertullian here.
This entry was posted on 3/05/2011 and is filed under , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

0 comments: