Al Owski’s Reviews > The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage > Status Update

“An angel was walking down the streets of the world carrying a torch in one hand and a pail of water in the other. A woman asked the angel, "What are you doing with that torch and pail?" The angel said, "With the torch I am burning down the mansions of heaven, and with the pail I am putting out the fires of hell." ”

“Can a pious pro-lifer ever admit that war, capital punishment, and social justice are also pro-life issues? Can the political left ever recognize its therapeutic bias, its individualism, its rejection of transcendence, its lack of support for the common good?”

“My final conviction is that we cannot dismantle the violence we see in the world if we allow threats and promises to be the overarching frame of Christianity, or any religious or secular creed. This dualism—the idea of an infinite God being caught up in a naïve reward-punishment worldview—must be undone by the deeper gospel of unconditional love and respect, or nothing will ever change.”

“We need someone who is on the loving but critical edge of any developing in-group, a truth-seeker who has dealt with his or her own wounds. Wounded healers are what we need.”

“When we read the prophets, we…cannot tell if they are conservative Republicans or radical, liberal Democrats. They appear to jump back and forth, sometimes cautioning a return to tradition, other times urging radical departures. We seldom see such truth-telling prophets, mainly because there is no one to offer much internal and intelligent critique of their own side…we have been lied to and fooled so many times…”

“Often it is true and even good to reject formulaic belonging, and believing might just be the most salient form of disorder for our time. And we must admit that much of "old-time religion" has been replaced not by mere nihilism but also by a deep set of legitimate values that people sincerely live. I am meeting younger folk with such values everywhere...”

“a white capitalist ally for the good old USA, a "best friend" for the therapeutic class, a harmless and optional teacher for many liberals, and the founder of a strange cult of innocence ("I am not a sinner") that almost no one can really live up to. Anything but a universal Christ for all of us broken sinners. And now people are leaving, no longer willing to drink this old wine.”

“Once we took away the prophetic Jesus's counterintuitive message and his countercultural critique, he became the personal possession of every nation's biases, shadows, and preoccupations…Jesus ended up as an outsider in the eyes of Judaism, a theologian to educated Greeks, a competing warrior for Rome, a conquistador for the New World, [an] evangelical preacher for right-wingers everywhere,…”

“I wonder if one reason we have so effectively wrecked and misinterpreted Jesus is that we needed to prove that he was the Son of God or the Messiah or a miracle worker before we let him speak as a prophet.”

“Like the prophets, we also must grow and change, and move from dualistic anger to empathetic tears…”