Others like coronavirus and christ Features >>
-160.webp)
About the Book
"Coronavirus and Christ" by John Piper explores how Christians can respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with faith, hope, and love, relying on the teachings of Christ to find peace and purpose in uncertain times. Piper encourages readers to trust in God's sovereign plan, express compassion towards others, and seek spiritual growth during times of crisis.
Hannah More
Beyond any doubt, Hannah More was the most influential female member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. She was educated at Bristol, an important slave-trading town, and began to publish her writing in the 1760s, while she was still a teenager. Her first play, The Inflexible Captive, was staged at Bath in 1775. Later in the 1770s, and for much of the 1780s, she spent time in London and made the acquaintance of many important political and society figures, including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Elizabeth Montagu. Her play Percy was produced by David Garrick in 1777, and Fatal Falsehood was staged in 1779, but she came to regard the theatre as morally wrong, especially after the death of her mentors; Garrick and Johnson. She turned to religious writing, beginning with her Sacred Dramas in 1782. In 1784-5, she 'discovered' Ann Yearsley, the so-called 'poetical milkmaid of Bristol', whose poems More helped to publish, although the two later fell out.
In the 1780s, More widened her circle to include religious and philanthropic figures, including John Newton, Beilby Porteus and William Wilberforce. In the summer of 1786, she spent time with Sir Charles and Lady Margaret Middleton at the their home in Teston in Kent. Among their guests were the local vicar James Ramsay and a young Thomas Clarkson, both of whom were central to the early abolition campaign. More and Clarkson met again in Bristol in 1787, while he was on his fact-finding mission to the city, but they did not become close. However, in the same year More met Wilberforce, and their friendship was to become a deep and lasting one. More contributed much to the running of the newly-founded Abolition Society including, in February 1788, her publication of Slavery, a Poem which has been recognised as one of the more important slavery poems of the abolition period. Her relationship with members of the society, especially Wilberforce, was close. For example, she spent the summer of 1789 holidaying with Wilberforce in the Peak District - planning for the abolition campaign, at that time at its height, formed a great deal of their conversation.
By the mid-1790s, More had become closely involved with the 'Clapham Sect' of evangelical Christians, many of whom were involved in the abolition campaign. The group centred on Henry Thornton's home in Clapham and included Wilberforce, James Stephen, and Zachary Macaulay, among others. Throughout the 1790s, she wrote a number of religious tracts, known as the Cheap Repository Tracts, that eventually led to the formation of the Religious Tracts Society. Several of the Tracts oppose slavery and the slave trade, in particular, the poem The Sorrows of Yamba; or, The Negro Woman's Lamentation, which appeared in November 1795 and which was co-authored with Eaglesfield Smith. However, the tracts have also been noted for their encouragement of social quietism in an age of revolution. She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life, but at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807, her health did not permit her to take as active a role in the movement as she had done in the late 1780s, although she maintained a correspondence with Wilberforce and others. In her later life, she dedicated much time to religious writing. Nevertheless, her most popular work was a novel, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, which appeared in two volumes in 1809 (and which ran to nine editions in 1809 alone). In the 1820s she grew gradually less well, and decreased - but did not entirely halt - the amount of writing she produced. On her death in 1833, she left more than Ă‚ÂŁ30,000 to charities and religious societies (equivalent to about Ă‚ÂŁ2,000,000 or $3,000,000 in 2004).
© Brycchan Carey 2004
Blessed Are the Unoffendable
I remember the flush of embarrassment that came to my face as I realized that my friend was letting me know I hadn’t been invited to be a part of the group of women she was meeting with regularly — and not by accident. I tried to navigate the moment, relieving the tension by telling her not to worry about it. I let her know that my plate was full with doctors’ appointments and kids’ activities. “I couldn’t join the group even if I were asked!” I laughed, doing all I could to keep her from feeling sorry for me. And my words were true. I really did have a plate too full to add anything else. I really didn’t want her to worry about it. Yet my hot cheeks and thumping heart told the secret I was trying to conceal — I was fighting the impulse to take offense. Shutting the Gates I knew well enough how destructive becoming offended can be. Proverbs 18:19 says, “A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city.” What horrible strength there is in taking up an offense! Offended people can become unassailable. Recalcitrant. Too hard-hearted to hear an appeal. When we are offended, we believe ourselves to have the moral high ground; therefore, we feel justified in making the one who has offended us a villain. I thought I was on the inside of this particular group of friends, only to discover I was not. My sense of where I fit in with others was challenged in a painful way. I could choose to accept it with goodwill toward these sisters and lean on my Savior who has called me his friend, or I could get tough — hard as nails — like an unyielding strong city whose gates have been shut and whose pride has locked out the offending parties. “Offended people become unassailable. Recalcitrant. Too hard-hearted to hear an appeal.” The Scriptures show us many instances of Jesus causing offense. He offends his hometown crowd. He offends Pharisees and scribes. He is the stone of stumbling and rock of offense. This is no big surprise to Christians. We aren’t shocked that the Pharisees or the hometown crowd are resentful and outraged by his superior understanding and his mighty deeds. From our vantage point, it isn’t too hard to see that when Jesus challenges their view of reality, he’s always right. We can see their blind spots and pride and how that pride makes them easily offended. But it’s much harder to spot the pride when we’re the one being offended, and when the offender is someone other than the perfect Jesus. The Drug of Offendedness What do we do when we’re offended by one another? What do we do if the offense given or taken is a result of carelessness, or thin skin, or personality differences, or unintentionally missing the mark, or sinfulness in ourselves or others? First, remember that when others are offensive in a truly sinful way, their offense is against God first and foremost. Sin against us feels personal, because it often is personal. But it’s significantly more personal to God, who doesn’t just relate to us, but who created us. God is patient with those who have offended his holiness. But he will not wait forever. And for those who are united to his Son through faith, their offenses against him have been extinguished at the cross. Second, it is good to remember that God has made a way for us to deal with a legitimate offense. We can follow the instructions of our Lord and go to that person directly in the hopes of gaining our brother (Matthew 18:15). We don’t ever need to stay offended. Even when we don’t gain our brother by going to him, we don’t have to live in our offended state; we can lay that down at the cross. And laying our offense there, we can take a posture that is eager for reconciliation, should God grant it. But what about when there is no intentional or discernible sin? What about the kind of situation that I found myself in — the one where I had not been sinned against, yet my hurt feelings were poised to harden into offendedness? It helps to acknowledge that taking offense is a powerful drug. It’s a powerful drug precisely because it gives us power. Remember the proverb — the offended brother is more unyielding than a strong city! “Taking offense is a powerful drug. It’s a powerful drug precisely because it gives us power.” When we turn hurt feelings into offendedness, we go from vulnerable to impenetrable. When we’re hurt by someone else’s words or actions, it’s tempting to try to protect ourselves with anger or self-righteousness that masquerades as having been offended. It’s easier to imagine the ones who have hurt us as villains rather than own that our hurt often has to do with our insecurities and fragility more than with the objective sinfulness of others. Good Sense and Glory Proverbs 19:11 says, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” Good sense and glory are in short supply these days. Rather than slow down and give our rational minds a chance to inform our wildly thumping hearts, we let our feelings inform our response. Rather than overlook an offense, we go conjuring them up from every possible infraction, mounting chips on our shoulders. Everything another person says that we disagree with is a devilish opportunity for taking up an offense. Anything another person does that is different than how we would do it strengthens the resolve of the unyielding, hardened heart. Too often, we can’t merely disagree with people; we are personally offended by the words, opinions, and actions of others, even when they have no bearing on our personal lives. And if we can’t find a way to be personally offended ourselves, too many have begun taking up an offense on behalf of another. Rather than cover an offense in the interest of love and refusing to repeat a matter (Proverbs 17:9), the society around us urges us to lend and borrow offenses as a currency of backward virtue. Blessed Are the Unoffendable There is more than insecurity and fragility underneath our proclivity to take up an offense, although those problems are constantly feeding it. At root, our easily offended hearts are full of pride and idolatry. We have set ourselves as the standard of what is right and good and what must be honored — any perceived challenge to that assumption results in anger, resentment, and the taking up of an offense. But we’re not the standard; God is — which is wonderful news for sinners. Because he is the standard, because only he can see into hearts and discern the motives of each of us, we can be free to assume the best of others, trusting that he will judge perfectly in the end. We can have the good sense to be slow to anger. We can become gloriously unoffendable. Won’t you lay down the offendedness you’ve nursed against others, and rest in the salvation of the God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love? He is patient in delaying judgment, but judgment will come. Today is the day to crucify the counterfeit power of offendedness and take hold of the gospel — which is the power of God for salvation to all who believe (Romans 1:16).
-480.webp)