From the Editors December 24, 2012 Issue

Thinking out of the thimble

The Editors

Eighty-four years ago, this magazine highlighted a statement by Henry Drummond (author of The Greatest Thing in the World): “Don’t offer men a thimbleful of Gospel. Don’t offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety; but remember how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they had, and then you will take hold of the whole of a man—and you will give him a bigger life, a fuller life-current, than the life he is living” (Sentinel, October 13, 1928).

Those words still resonate with many of us in the 21st century as we hear people around us lamenting that despite its Christian roots, America is “going down the spiritual tubes.”

This is becoming increasingly evident, they say, in many facets of life including church, family, work, and government. Religion writers, especially, detect a deep-seated weariness and directionlessness in much of contemporary church life. They ask: Are Christians responding in word and deed to Jesus’ call to them to join him in his joyful work of shepherding those in need and proclaiming the gospel message of healing?

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