David Berg Quotes

Die Einfachheit und Nacktheit des primitiven Menschen hatte wenigstens den Vorteil, daß er sich in der Natur als Gast fühlte. War er durch Nahrung und Schlaf erquickt, dann dachte er wieder ans Weiterziehen. Er lebte in der Welt gleichsam wie in einem Zelt, durchstreifte die Täler, überquerte die Ebenen oder kletterte auf Berge. Aber die Menschen haben sich zu Werkzeugen ihrer Werkzeuge gemacht! Der Mensch, der sich frei und unabhängig Beeren pflückte, wenn er hungrig war, ist Farmer geworden, und der einst unter einem Baum Schutz suchte, Hausbesitzer. Wir schlagen nicht mehr für eine Nacht unser Zelt auf, sondern haben uns auf der Erde ansässig gemacht und den Himmel vergessen. Wir haben die christliche Kultur angenommen, doch nur als verbesserte Methode der Agri-Kultur. Wir haben für diese Welt ein Familienhaus und für die andere ein Familiengrab errichtet.

Does the Lord really expect us to be grateful when things aren't going well? Even though He said we should grateful "in all things," does that mean we should be grateful when we reach the end of our money before the end of the month? Yes. Does that mean we should be grateful when we suffer from loneliness and depression? Yes. Does that mean we should be grateful if our employer terminates us? Absolutely. Does that seem ridiculous? It might. But there are very valid reasons. It is not that God commands us to be grateful in all things to serve His own selfish purposes, but rather to bless our own lives. Learning to be grateful in all things promotes a measure of peace that we may never know otherwise. In the Old Testament, King David, who certainly had his share of adversity declared, "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Theocratic ideals and the notion of the glory of God can only operate within the context of a theology deeply conscious of the unity of life and the royal dominion of Christ over every sphere of life (van den Berg 1956:185). The Enlightenment put humans rather than God in the center; all of reality had to be reshaped according to human dreams and schemes. Even in Christian circles human needs and aspirations, although originally couched in purely religious terms, began to take precedence over God's glory.

For the Puritans, culture was subsumed under religion; now, under the sway of the Enlightenment, culture really had become the dominant entity and religion one of its expressions (cf van den Berg 1956:61). The question now asked by liberal and conservative alike, and one that was really unthinkable before the Enlightenment, was this: Must one educate and civilize before evangelism can be effective, or should one concentrate on evangelism, confident that civilization will follow (cf Hutchison 1987:12)?

everyone. Berg and his wife, Edith, also an