Presence of the Kingdom Quotes

“We must be convinced that there are no such things as 'Christian principles.' There is the Person of Christ, who is the principle of everything. But if we wish to be faithful to Him, we cannot dream of reducing Christianity to it certain number of principles (though this is often done), the consequences of which can be logically deduced. This tendency to transform the work of the Living God into a philosophical doctrine is the constant temptation of theologians, and also of the faithful, and their greatest disloyalty when they transform the action of the Spirit which brings forth fruit in themselves into an ethic, a new law, into 'principles' which only have to be 'applied.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“A major fact of our present civilization is that more and more sin becomes collective, and the individual is forced to participate in collective sin.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“Despite the conviction that our era is revolutionary, we must also recognize that under the appearance of movement and development we are in fact living in complete stasis. There is undoubtedly much chaos and violence, there is technical progress, there are social and political experiments. But in reality our world is static, because its structures remain absolutely fixed and its development unfolds along a completely expected rather than revolutionary path.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

“We must give up believing that we can 'improve' the world, that at least we can make man better, even if we cannot make him happy. At the same time, if we take this situation of the Christian seriously, we must refuse to further the disintegrating tendency in the world. We must not say to ourselves, 'We can't do anything about it!' To talk like this is to play into the hands of the Prince of this world. Thus we seem caught between two necessities, which nothing can alter: on the one hand it is impossible for us to make this world less sinful; on the other hand it is impossible for us to accept it as it is.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“In the world everyone wants to be a 'wolf,' and no one is called to play the part of 'sheep.' Yet the world cannot live without this living witness of sacrifice. That is why it is essential that Christians should be very careful not to be 'wolves' in the spiritual sense - that is, people who try to dominate others. Christians must accept the domination of other people, and offer the daily sacrifice of their lives, which is united with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“It is true that we still talk about "happiness" or "liberty" or "justice," but people no longer have any idea of the content of the phrases, nor of the conditions they require, and these empty phrases are only used in order to take measures which have no relation to these illusions.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“The work of Christian intellectuals is not done in the abstract; it is effective participation in the preservation of the world, and in the building up of the church.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

“People in their natural condition are incapable on their own of seeing the spiritual reality within which they struggle. They see only what appear to be social, political, or economic problems, and they try to work within this appearance using technical means and moral criteria. In this way they end up in situations that are always more false and complicated, until what they have called their civilization reaches the point of collapse.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

“Anyone who questions the value of the 'fact' draws down on himself the most severe reproaches of our day: he is a 'reactionary,' he wants to go back to the 'good old days,' and those who make these reproaches do not realize that such questioning is, perhaps, the only revolutionary attitude possible at the present time.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“People think that they have no right to judge a 'fact' - all they have to do is to accept it.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“We share in the sin of the world. We are involved in it because in spite of our faith we are and remain sinners; we are also involved in the sin of humanity through the various 'orders' of life created by God, so that when a an of my family, or of my nation, commits a sin, I am responsible before God for this transgression. Only this truth must not remain merely a verbal one.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“He judges the present time in virtue of a meta-historical fact, and the incursion of this event into the present is the only force capable of throwing off the dead weight of social and political institutions which are gradually crushing the life out of our present civilization.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“In consequence of the claims which God is always making on the world the Christian finds himself, by that very fact, involved in a state of permanent revolution. Even when the institutions, the laws, the reforms which he has advocated have been achieved, even if society be re-organized according to his suggestions, he still has to be in opposition, he still must exact more, for the claim of God is as infinite as His forgiveness.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“Essentially, for instance, Communist society is based on the same facts as Capitalist society: and at bottom, the U.S.S.R. obey the same rules as the U.S.A. Man is no more free on the one side than the other; he is simply used for production in different ways. Man is not more fully preserved on one side than on the other, only he belongs to a different section of mass-civilization. Justice is as much flouted on the Right as on the Left, but for different reasons. Whether we live under a dictatorship or in a democracy the financial technique is always the same, just as the American rationalization of labour closely resembles that of the Stakhanov Movement.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“At heart, this is a fight of faith: individual, and in the presence of God; and a living attitude, adopted according to the measure of faith of each person, and as the result of his or her faith. It is never a series of rules, or principles, or slogans, and every Christian is really responsible for his works and for his conscience. Thus we can never make a complete and valid description of the ethical demands of God, any more than we can reach its heart. We can only define its outline, and its conditions, and study some of its elements for purposes of illustration.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“But so far as the intelligence is tied to its technical expression, so far as the intellectual tends to become a technician, their sphere of action–which seemed to be extended by all the technical aids–in reality becomes narrower and narrower. Because the intelligence cannot be freed from its instrument, it remains limited today to the sphere in which this instrument can act, can be utilized.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom

“Thus we are caught between two necessities that form an unresolvable tension. On the one hand, we cannot make this world less sinful; on the other, we cannot accept it as it is.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

“Spiritual combat is as brutal as men’s battle!”74”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

“This is the situation of all Christians. It is most acute for the laity, however, because for them in particular there is no separation from the world. They can have no illusions on this score. In the first place, they participate in the world through their work and concerns. The world constantly assails their very being. Claiming to be separate becomes more and more difficult, as each person is forced into a world that becomes more intrusive, crushing, and demanding than ever. Our occupations alone are enough today to absorb all of our resources. Each of us is drowning in overwhelming activity, leaving us no time to reflect, carry out our function as a Christian, or even live.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

“A first order of conclusions will likely appear even more abstract and difficult! It is that Christians must not judge, act, or live according to principles, but according to the reality of the eschaton, lived out here and now. This is exactly the opposite of a moralism.”
― Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation