The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Brave


We went as a family last week to see the new Pixar movie Brave (see here). I was partly persuaded to go as the film features two songs (in English) sung by Julie Fowlis. Pixar always put on a good show anyway. The film was beautifully drawn and held interest right through. It could have done with a few more jokes, I guess. On the whole it was average for Pixar but Pixar are always above average. The story was quite fresh though as outlandish as ever. It deals with that age old question of fate or divine predestination as against free will or human responsibility. The world is unable to deal with this adequately, of course, and so the basic message here was that you have to make your own fate, which is about as close as a worldly view will get. Biblical Christians simply have to live with the tension between God's predestination and our human responsibility as typified in Newton's statement about preparing sermons as if there were no Holy Spirit and preaching as though all depended on him regardless.

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