Francis Spufford
Francis Spufford
Francis Spufford, FRSLis an English author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
generosity want virtue
God doesn't want your careful virtue, He wants your reckless generosity.
however perceive state
Why do I write? From selfishness. Because this state of liquefied, complex concentration, however faintly and dimly I'm able to perceive it, is the greatest pleasure I know.
adaptable ecological incredibly intact love low parts preserving repertoire using
There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant.
actuality best embedded fabulous god hope lewis necessary render requiring special tried true
If you're a believer, God is not a thought-experiment requiring a special sub-creation to be tried out in. He's an actual, er, actuality already, embedded in a necessary and true story about guilt, hope, and liberty. I don't want C. S. Lewis doing his resourceful best to render Him as a fabulous special effect.
accentuate both changes continuity necessary religion stays sudden
Christianity is a religion of continuity and discontinuity as well. It's about what stays the same and what changes in the twinkling of an eye. Both are necessary truths, but sometimes it's important to accentuate the discontinuity, the sudden leap, the way you go up a tree, Zacchaeus, and come down a saint.
argued faith passive
I was never argued out of faith; it was much more passive than that - and I wasn't argued back in, either.
sensation struck unfair
It's always struck me as unfair that writing has so little sensation when it's going well.
believers best category despite efforts faith lane mean puts science truth william
Despite the best efforts of apologists like William Lane Craig, the 'evidence' for Christianity's truth is, in truth, not the kind that science will or should ever admit. We believers mean something different by the word: something that puts faith permanently in the category of irreproducible results.
banker believe crap education exciting high investment kinds librarians low middle needs worked
You don't have to become an investment banker as a way of demonstrating that education has worked for you. But librarians have to believe in the values of high culture. Not just high culture but middle culture, low culture, kinds of exciting eye-catching crap of all kinds. Everyone needs that.