Pudding
Recently as I am writing my theology paper on spiritual warfare, I pull out Eugene Peterson's Reverse Thunder from my bookshelf again. I first read this book in 2002 while taking Revelation with Darrell Johnson and then with Gordon Fee. That was really a memerable experience. As I flip through the book, I find that I underlined quite a large among of text in the book, which is quite unusual for me. The following is one of the many such paragraphs, which more than ever sounds so true to me:
Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 190.
The whole work of the world against the community of faith is to insinuate that the Christian life is nice in its way, but peripheral to the real world of human action. The conspiracy of the gang that runs Babylon is to eliminate contemplation from the life of the average person so that unless something is illuminated by klieg lights, on one will notice it, and unless someone speaks into a battery of microphones, no one will listen. The devil's plot is to banalize Jesus into a pale Galilean who certainly must be taken seriously and quoted reverently whenever we take time out, as we should from time to time, to discuss great ideas. The satanic strategy is to normalize Christians into a homogenized Roman pudding of good citizens who really should try to get along with each as best they can. When this work is successful, everyone becomes a Christian in such a way that it makes no difference.
Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 190.
Labels: Reflection
