Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Another from the Eugene...

I read Peteron's book, Pastor, in March 2011. There are few public figures who are able somehow to weave together an acute pastoral sensibility and keen cultural critique in a such beautiful way. Here's one from the book:

"I love being an American. I love this place in which I have been placed - it's language, its history, its energy. But I don't love 'the American way,' its culture and values. I don't love the rampant consumerism that treats God as a product to be marketed. I don't love the dehumanizing ways that turn men, woman, and children into impersonal roles and causes and statistics. I don't love the competitive spirit that treats others as rivals and even as enemies. The cultural conditions in which I am immersed require, at least for me, a kind of fierce vigilance to guard my vocation from these cultural pollutants so dangerously toxic to persons who want to follow Jesus in the way that he is Jesus. I wanted my life, both my personal and working life, to be shaped by God and the Scriptures and prayer."

- Eugene Peterson, Pastor, 4ff.

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