Owing to the pressure of an ever-increasing number of
subjects introduced  into the curriculum of a school, it is
only too possible for men to be held  to be educated and
intelligent without ever having seriously tested their 
intelligence upon, say, the Book of Job, or upon the Epistle
of Paul to  the Romans. No doubt there are very good excuses
for this lack of  discipline. Many forward-thinking men will
tell you that the Bible is not  worth serious attention, that
it is simple, trivial, and out-of-date; and  so, even though
you may hear the Bible read, read it yourselves, or even  study
it, the tension of your energy may be relaxed--subtly relaxed.
But  it is quite certain that a widespread relaxation of the
tension of Biblical  interpretation has disastrous effects. For
there is no corruption that  threatens a country so surely as
the corruption or sentimentalizing of its  religion; and there
is no corruption of the Christian religion so swift as  that
which sets in when the Church loses its strict Biblical 
discipline.
    ... E. C. Hoskyns (1884-1937), We Are the Pharisees  [1960]
2006-12-29
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