105
" Politics as the art of managing vice is a dangerous game to play, and many have ruined their societies in trying to play it. In Augustine’s biblical view, only God can manage the subtleties of the process, and the theological term for God’s management of the world is providence. By contrast, all would-be human providences will fail in the end, whether Hobbes’s false providence of the “Leviathan” of the political state or Adam Smith’s false providence of “the invisible hand” of the commercial market. Today’s liberal democracy, with its culture of transgression, its drive to liberate anything and everything done by and between consenting adults, and its mania for management by metrics, appears bent on adding to history’s examples of societies that failed to manage vice and the crooked timber of our humanity. "
― Os Guinness , Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion
107
" On the one hand, for each of us, sin is the claim to the right to myself, and so to my way of seeing things, which—far more than class, gender, race and generation—is the ultimate source of human relativity. On the other hand, sin is the deliberate repudiation of God and the truth of his way of seeing things. If my way of seeing things is decisive, anyone who differs from me is wrong by definition—including God. No, "
― Os Guinness , Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion
109
" Professionalism embodies the power to prescribe. Today it is the key to determining need, defining clients, delivering solutions, and deepening dependency—whether in healing identity, rebuilding inner cities, dispensing public opinion, or planting churches among baby boomers. The result, however, is not necessarily greater freedom and responsibility for ordinary people, because the dominance of the expert means the dependency of the client. All that has changed is the type of authority. Traditional authorities, such as the clergy, have been replaced by modern authorities—in this case, denominational leaders by church-growth experts. The outcome is what Christopher Lasch calls “paternalism without a father” and Ivan Illich “the age of disabling professions.”[1] The suggestion is that “The expert knows best,” so “we can do better.” But the “ministry of all believers” recedes once again. Even the dream of the “self-help” movement becomes a radical chic illusion that disguises the gold rush of experts in its wake. In most cases, all that has changed is the type of clergy. The old priesthood is dead! Long live the new power-pastors and pundit-priests! "
― Os Guinness , Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity
115
" Over these is elevated an immense tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle.... It does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting on one's own; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way; it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.41
BEWARE "
― Os Guinness , A Free People's Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future
120
" Thus a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but, what is worse, as many masters as he has vices. ST. AUGUSTINE, CITY OF GOD "
― Os Guinness , Last Call for Liberty