From Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant
A bare sixty to seventy years after Pentecost we have an account of seven churches that show about the same quality of holiness and depth of virtue foud in any ordinary parish in America today. In two thousands years of practice we haven’t gotten any better. You would think we would have, but we haven’t. Every time we open up a church door and take a careful, scrutinizing look inside we find them there again – sinners. Also Christ. Christ in the preaching. Christ in the sacraments, but inconveniently and embarrassingly mixed into this congregation of sinners.
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I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
