Sometimes you can feel so guilty that it takes an emotional toll on you. In the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbra Kingsolver, guilt is the most outstanding theme. The family continually struggles with overcoming guilt. The father had always dealt with the guilt of being a coward. He was constantly trying to prove to himself, God, and the rest of the world that he was not a coward.
THE CRUSADERS AND THE CHURCH The crusades represent a part of church history that many have attempted to forget and leave hidden within the history books. Some claim the crusades to be a courageous time for the Christian church as they attempted to trample out false doctrine and protect the Holy Land from the cult of Islam. Others will quickly identify the crusades as the darkest and most regretful period of time in the history of the church. Either way, there is much detail surrounding the history of the crusades and how they developed. It is not quite as easy as a black and white assumption because many of the men involved had mixed intentions and sentiments regarding what the crusades were actually about.
A lot of Christians fear of looking at themselves on the inside because they are afraid they will become very self-absorbed. The Bible states “We all fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The biggest issue with a fallen human being is denial. Christians are often advised on only focusing on Christ rather than evaluating themselves. Things that should guide people towards repentance could potentially keep their focus looking inside themselves.
A person may perceive a certain image of what God is, like a trinket or something they have seen that reminds them of God. Then they start to pray to that every time instead of praying to God. This is a point he is trying to make by saying that it is still a major sin but that sometimes we don’t notice the smaller things as being bad. This book teaches a lot about the nature of God. Screwtape has a hard time believing that God actually cares for His people, unlike, “Their Father Below”.
Further, the book of Romans is key in helping believers strengthen the foundation of their faith by developing a solid biblical worldview. Natural World One of the biggest challenges today in developing a biblical worldview is that of a society that constantly tries to silence the Bible in key areas. Schools teach evolution as fact instead of theory, yet dismiss the biblical account of creation as false. This type of censorship is detrimental to the development of our children as they become indoctrinated from a very early age with false teachings. However, according to Paul, even then they will not be without excuse as creation itself makes it plain that there is a Creator and His qualities are evident in the beauty and detail of what’s been created (Romans 1:20).
Candide is so devoted to Pangloss that it seems like he is embracing all Pangloss’teachings and behaviour. Following Pangloss’ teachings make him unable to make his own decision and build up a stable life as he always came across very bad situations. Candide cannot realise that the main source of all these bad days are the results of his trust in Pangloss’ teachings an irrational thinking and we can see that till now all these disasters are happening because Candide is still following Pangloss. At a certain point of view we might believe that all the disasters that happened to Candide will lower his belief and trust in Pangloss. But ironically it seemed that all these disasters reinforced his belief in
The Sermon on the Mount is one hundred percent anti retaliation. If someone even does anything evil to you, you’re supposed to turn the other cheek, forgive, and pray for the ones who did you wrong. As a people we have a hard time following this simple rule because we don’t want to let people walk all over us, but apparently that’s the ideal way to live one’s life. The main reasons for this rule of living a moral life is that everyone, righteous or evil, are children of the all mighty God above. “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthews 676).
Faith in God is easily converted into superstition amongst the ignorance of the uneducated. Juxtaposed to this, Mompellion adhered to religious belief and had to research and inquired thoroughly yet he still found God a “poor listener” . In the novel there is an obvious ambivalence in his ability to encourage the people to have faith in their time of crises but then not be able to deal with his own hardship. It is seen that the educated and observant are the best equipped to emancipate themselves from the confines of the societal
However, secular psychology does not go far enough. It cannot supply the resources we need to address the real problem in man's soul, his sin. Biblical doctrine is where we get the true picture of man's nature and problem and an adequate understanding of the resources we need to become whole. The Bible must be our underlying foundation at all times in working with people. We must never lose sight of God's perspective on man as revealed in His word.
While reading this book, you’ll start to notice how much people are just praying and hoping for survival. Just imagining the fact that you have to go day by day praying you’ll survive the next day without being put to death is the scariest feeling in the world. "Why, but why should I bless him? In every fiber, I rebelled. Because He had, had thousands of children burned in his pits?