“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth. . . .”
~ Matthew 23:33–35
“[Jacob] wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ ”
~ Genesis 32:25–26
The church lies bereft,
Alone, desecrated, desolated.
And the heathen shall build
On the ruins.1 — T.S. Eliot
These haunting words punctuate the lowest point of British playwright and poet T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. The iconic Archbishop of Canterbury, Samuel Beckett, will die, martyred by the malevolent, selfish King Henry II. But not for any nostalgic reason. Not for any sentimental purpose. Beckett will die in obedience to our Lord God’s purposes. He defies hyperbole.
As we struggle to make sense of all the hard times we face, of all the good things we can do. Let us choose the obedient thing to do, not the thing that may seem right in our own eyes. “Yet we have gone on living, living and partly living,” Beckett muses.2
There is a crisis of ethics in our time. The sagacious Beckett, as he contemplates his future, muses, “Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns.”3 And even worse, “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” To do the right deed for the wrong reason. . . . in this age of compromises, of good intentions, it is critical that we follow Beckett’s example. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Human kind cannot bear very much reality.
The church shall be open, even to our enemies.
We are not here to triumph by fighting, by stratagem, or by resistance,
Not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast
And have conquered. We have only to conquer
Now, by suffering. This is the easier victory. . . .
For every life and every act
Consequence of good and evil can be shown.
And as in time results of many deeds are blended
So good and evil in the end become confounded. . . .
In life there is not time to grieve long. . . .
And the heathen shall build on the ruins
Their world without God. I see it. I see it.4
Oh, young people, children of my God, if you only knew how much I believe in you! I believe God will do great things in and through you!
The biggest problem among my evangelical friends is not that they turned their backs on God, it is that they replaced Him with other gods. They lost their passion. They were tamed.
Let us not be of the world; let us be in that world. In fact, let us create a new world!
Main Idea
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. For example, Mr. Blatchford attacks Christianity because he is mad on one Christian virtue: the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. He has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is not only an early Christian, he is the only early Christian who ought really to have been eaten by lions. For in his case the pagan accusation is really true: his mercy would mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the human race — because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may take the acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing of the heart. Torquemada tortured people physically for the sake of moral truth. Zola tortured people morally for the sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada’s time there was at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness and peace kiss each other. Now they do not even bow. But a much stronger case than these two of truth and pity can be found in the remarkable case of the dislocation of humility.5 — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
What does Chesterton mean when he says, “The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues”?
- He doesn’t mean it. He is only joking.
- He laments the loss of “orthodoxy,” or “balanced religion,” by excessive emphasis on one doctrine or Christian truth.
- Heresy is not an aberrant truth; it is the over emphasis of a real truth.
- I
- II
- III
- I and III
- II and III
- None
- All
???Are you reading 50 to 100 pages a day???
Insight
Translating English into Math Expressions
Math word problems, the majority ACT math format, are English expressions in math language. Math language includes numbers (5), variables (X), procedural symbols (<, >), and grouping symbols ( {, }). For example “the sum of 4 and 9” would translate into: 4 + 9 = .
To help you translate your math problem, thoroughly mark up the problem.
Look for key words. For example, “sum of,” “total of,” “increased by,” and others.
Circle leading key words and connect to other parts of the sentence.
The sum of 4 and 9 equals ?
Then, translate the phrase.
4 + 9 = 13
Observations
Pretend that you are an anthropologist and visiting New Guinea. You see these men. What do you conclude about their environment? Of course you may be wrong, but make some conclusions.
- This society is pre-historic (does not practice writing).
- The adults in this society do not live long.
- The main source of food in this society is agricultural products.
- I
- II
- III
- All
- None
- I and II
- I, II, and III
Evaluating Essays
Score the following essay and then discuss how it could be improved.
How does adversity shape who we are?
I support that ease does not challenge us and that we must face adversity to discover who we are. I have three examples of how we need adversity to discover ourselves. Firstly, when I was 14 years old, I struggled with being over-weight. However, I started to exercise and eat healthier, then I lost a lot of weight. Had I not had the challenge of being overweight, I would not have known that I was a disciplined person.
Secondly, I have an aunt who, over a period of years, has been having health problems. She has went away to seek medical treatment on numerous occasions, and most of the time she was disappointed. However, if she did not have this health issue, she would not have known that she is a determined person. My final example that adversity helps us to discover who we are is the story of Hercules. Hercules was the son of the chief god Zeus. He had had to be given 12 tasks in order to be seen as a true hero. Had he not gone through the grueling ordeals, he may have not discovered who he truly was, a hero. In conclusion, adversity and challenges make us look at ourselves and discover who we are; whether we are an overweight teen, a sick woman, or just a Greek myth.
Orthodoxy, The Romance of Faith6
G.K. Chesterton
If G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith is, as he called it, a “slovenly autobiography,” then we need more slobs in the world. This quirky, slender book describes how Chesterton came to view orthodox Catholic Christianity as the way to satisfy his personal emotional needs in a way that would also allow him to live happily in society. Chesterton argues that people in western society need a life of “practical romance, the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome.” Drawing on such figures as Fra Angelico, George Bernard Shaw, and Paul to make his points, Chesterton argues that submission to ecclesiastical authority is the way to achieve a good and balanced life. The whole book is written in a style that is as majestic and down-to-earth as C.S. Lewis at his best. The final chapter, called “Authority and the Adventurer,” is especially persuasive. It’s hard to imagine a reader who will not close the book believing, at least for the moment, that the Church will make you free.7 — Michael Joseph Gross
Suggested Vocabulary Words
I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may well call their law the “chain” of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached egg.
In passing from this subject I may note that there is a queer fallacy to the effect that materialistic fatalism is in some way favourable to mercy, to the abolition of cruel punishments or punishments of any kind. This is startlingly the reverse of the truth. It is quite tenable that the doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all; that it leaves the flogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as before.
Word Problems
1. A had seven times as many apples, and B three times as many as C had. If they all together had 55 apples, how many had each?
2. The difference between two numbers is 36, and one is four times the other. What are the numbers?
3. In a company of 48 people there is one man to each five women. How many are there of each?
4. A man left $1400 to be distributed among three sons in such a way that James was to receive double what John received, and John double what Henry received. How much did each receive?
5. A field containing 45,000 feet was divided into three lots so that the second lot was three times the first, and the third twice the second. How large was each lot?
Grammar: General to Specific
Arrange the words in each of the following lists in descending order of general to specific.
1. fish, animal, creature, goldfish.
2. foreigner, woman, person, German
3. chicken, main dish, food, meat
When you write, always use specific, precise language.
Go to Answers Sheet