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Francis Spufford Quotes

Christians are as subject to complacency as anybody else, and we can certainly settle into repetition and forget that something radical and extraordinary is being asked of us as well - that we hold to an extraordinary promise about how, from moment to moment, something enters the world and enters us, after which everything is different Picture Quote #1

Why do I write? From selfishness. Because this state of liquefied, complex concentration, however faintly and dimly I’m able to perceive it, is the greatest pleasure I know Picture Quote #1

What I absolutely want is to suggest that before it’s anything else, redemption is God mending the bicycle of our souls; God bringing out the puncture repair kit, re-inflating the tires, taking off the rust, making us roadworthy once more. Not so that we can take flight into ecstasy, but so that we can do the next needful mile of our lives Picture Quote #1

I am a fairly orthodox Christian. Every Sunday, I say and do my best to mean the whole of the Creed, which is a series of propositions. But it is still a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary Picture Quote #1

You don’t have to become an investment banker as a way of demonstrating that education has worked for you. But librarians have to believe in the values of high culture. Not just high culture but middle culture, low culture, kinds of exciting eye-catching crap of all kinds. Everyone needs that Picture Quote #1

There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant Picture Quote #1

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In a hundred years, Christianity will have mutated into something utterly unpredictable which, nevertheless, we’d recognize immediately. And same-sex marriage will be one of the fine old God-given traditions that conservatives leap to defend Picture Quote #1

I think I have made allowances for the kind of despair which would test my faith, but you cannot know in advance what disaster to those you love would be too much to bear faithfully, and like everyone’s, my faith is weakly conditional in some ways. I hope, I pray not to lose it. My fingers are crossed. Also my heart Picture Quote #1

It’s true that when Christianity is socially powerful, faith can look from the outside as if it is mainly a matter of membership, of participation in the vast synchronised swim of institutions Picture Quote #1

Despite the best efforts of apologists like William Lane Craig, the ‘evidence’ for Christianity’s truth is, in truth, not the kind that science will or should ever admit. We believers mean something different by the word: something that puts faith permanently in the category of irreproducible results Picture Quote #1

If you’re a believer, God is not a thought-experiment requiring a special sub-creation to be tried out in. He’s an actual, er, actuality already, embedded in a necessary and true story about guilt, hope, and liberty. I don’t want C. S. Lewis doing his resourceful best to render Him as a fabulous special effect Picture Quote #1

What we need in Europe is to push back against the idea that religion is so farfetched that it’s not worth talking about Picture Quote #1

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Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-approval, any more than imagination is the same thing as day-dreaming Picture Quote #1

For a believer, Christian faith is true to the human heart, not in the sense that any old thing we fancy believing in will become conveniently true - but because the complicated truth about our hearts, as we struggle to perceive it, tells us what we are and where we are, and consequently what we need Picture Quote #1

Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue Picture Quote #1

You never came out the way you came in Picture Quote #1

When I’m tired and therefore indecisive, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am going to have with me while I brush my teeth Picture Quote #1

The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult Picture Quote #1

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We are supposed to be on the side of goodness in the sense that we need it, not that we are it Picture Quote #1

What follows is more about books than it is about me, but nonetheless it is my inward autobiography, for the words we take into ourselves help to shape us Picture Quote #1

Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be Picture Quote #1

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Christians are as subject to complacency as anybody else, and we can certainly settle into repetition and forget that something radical and extraordinary is being asked of us as well - that we hold to an extraordinary promise about how, from moment to moment, something enters the world and enters us, after which everything is different. (Francis Spufford Quotes) Why do I write? From selfishness. Because this state of liquefied, complex concentration, however faintly and dimly I’m able to perceive it, is the greatest pleasure I know. (Francis Spufford Quotes) What I absolutely want is to suggest that before it’s anything else, redemption is God mending the bicycle of our souls; God bringing out the puncture repair kit, re-inflating the tires, taking off the rust, making us roadworthy once more. Not so that we can take flight into ecstasy, but so that we can do the next needful mile of our lives. (Francis Spufford Quotes) I am a fairly orthodox Christian. Every Sunday, I say and do my best to mean the whole of the Creed, which is a series of propositions. But it is still a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. (Francis Spufford Quotes) You don’t have to become an investment banker as a way of demonstrating that education has worked for you. But librarians have to believe in the values of high culture. Not just high culture but middle culture, low culture, kinds of exciting eye-catching crap of all kinds. Everyone needs that. (Francis Spufford Quotes) There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant. (Francis Spufford Quotes) In a hundred years, Christianity will have mutated into something utterly unpredictable which, nevertheless, we’d recognize immediately. And same-sex marriage will be one of the fine old God-given traditions that conservatives leap to defend. (Francis Spufford Quotes) I think I have made allowances for the kind of despair which would test my faith, but you cannot know in advance what disaster to those you love would be too much to bear faithfully, and like everyone’s, my faith is weakly conditional in some ways. I hope, I pray not to lose it. My fingers are crossed. Also my heart. (Francis Spufford Quotes) It’s true that when Christianity is socially powerful, faith can look from the outside as if it is mainly a matter of membership, of participation in the vast synchronised swim of institutions. (Francis Spufford Quotes) Despite the best efforts of apologists like William Lane Craig, the ‘evidence’ for Christianity’s truth is, in truth, not the kind that science will or should ever admit. We believers mean something different by the word: something that puts faith permanently in the category of irreproducible results. (Francis Spufford Quotes) If you’re a believer, God is not a thought-experiment requiring a special sub-creation to be tried out in. He’s an actual, er, actuality already, embedded in a necessary and true story about guilt, hope, and liberty. I don’t want C. S. Lewis doing his resourceful best to render Him as a fabulous special effect. (Francis Spufford Quotes) What we need in Europe is to push back against the idea that religion is so farfetched that it’s not worth talking about. (Francis Spufford Quotes) Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-approval, any more than imagination is the same thing as day-dreaming. (Francis Spufford Quotes) For a believer, Christian faith is true to the human heart, not in the sense that any old thing we fancy believing in will become conveniently true - but because the complicated truth about our hearts, as we struggle to perceive it, tells us what we are and where we are, and consequently what we need. (Francis Spufford Quotes) Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue (Francis Spufford Quotes) You never came out the way you came in (Francis Spufford Quotes) When I’m tired and therefore indecisive, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am going to have with me while I brush my teeth (Francis Spufford Quotes) The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult (Francis Spufford Quotes) We are supposed to be on the side of goodness in the sense that we need it, not that we are it (Francis Spufford Quotes) What follows is more about books than it is about me, but nonetheless it is my inward autobiography, for the words we take into ourselves help to shape us (Francis Spufford Quotes) Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be (Francis Spufford Quotes)