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"God willing, the Western church might yet remember that it is not an all-purpose volunteer religious society for whatever causes society currently defines as good. We can at any moment take instead to proclaiming the gospel. And if the church did that, then in the Western context its message would again as in ancient days be a word of hope for freedom, of hope for hope. […] Folk who labor on great inherited texts as if they matter liberate all around them to confidence that history does have some plot. Those who practice the arts of public discourse open little polities just by doing so, each time they break their silence. Those who discipline themselves to the outcome of experiment and observation, when they do it for sake of truth, encourage all to faith that there is truth. To pursue beauty is to create for all to see and hear. When we act as if human deliberation and decision could make a difference, they do make a difference. When we act as if community were real, it just thereby becomes real."

• Jenson, Robert W., 1995: Hope, the Gospel, and the Liberal Arts. I:  Essays in Theology of Culture. Grand Rapids  Eerdmans Publishing Co. S. 189.