This faith enables us to be at the same time realistic and hopeful.  We can be realistic, knowing that no human project can eliminate the powers of darkness as they operate in human life.  This realism delivers us from the Utopian fanaticisms which have condemned millions of people to misery and death in the cause of an imagined future.  But at the same time we can be hopeful, acting hopefully in apparently hopeless situations, not dreaming of an absolute perfection on this side of death, but doing resolutely that relative good which is possible now, doing it as an offering to the Lord who is able to take it and keep it for the perfect kingdom which is promised.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Order of Worship, November 28 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church