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.

John Blahoslav

While I was at Banner I bumped into a Czech brother I know (This is a description not his denomination). He passed on a copy of John Blahoslav - Sixteenth Century Moravian Reformer. It is by an American theologian based in the Czech Republic called Marshall T Brown. It is only short book and I have now read it and enjoyed it. Blahoslav is a sort of Luther or Tyndale figure. He is behind not only the traditional Protestant New Testament (as found in the Kralicke Bible) but also a Czech grammar, a book on preaching and a hymn book, to which he contributed not only on the words front but musically too. It is wonderful to hear about a Christian I had never heard of and how God used him in his own context in his own time to achieve great things, recognised by Czechs in general but especially by the believers. It would be nice to see other books on pioneer translators, certainly if they are written as well as this one, which seems to get a good balance between being scholarly and popular. The one thing that might have been nice to see (if it is possible) was some concrete examples of how Blahoslav shaped the Czech tongue. The book, though in English, might be hard to get hold of. It is advertised here in the USA and can be had from Amazon in Germany I notice. The book contains some nice illustrations at the end.

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