Curtain down for Bathesda Book Centre

If I cared to search this blog, I must have blogged about Bethesda Book Centre or BBC previously. They have been slowly retrenching themselves from the Christian book selling market. The outlet at Toa Payoh which I used to frequent has been shuttered for a while now. I vaguely recall visiting their Marine Parade outlet once and now that is closing too.

Even as Christianity is adding members (I didn't say believers) they are also showing signs of decline. I don't have to the time to explain myself here but people basically want God as problem server and Santa Claus. So when you are dead when all problems cease and you cannot make use of any gift, I suppose the relationship can come to an end at that point. I didn't feel this as strongly before until March this year seeing how my friend's daughter passed away.

I happened to come across this in my KIV folder which I do not know what to do with it. This would be good a place for it.

Personally I prefer to put it this way from John White, The Cost of Commitment.

"The Way of the Cross is a magnificent obsession with a heavenly pearl pearl against which everything else in life has not value"

Of course as I look around the problem with Dr. White's statement is not that there is anything wrong but how it is lived.

This is most frustrating and on balance I rather see people not putting God as central than pretending to put him on the throne of their lives. The former has hope but the latter I am afraid are likely done for. If you passed off a diamond which is made of glass as the real thing, how is anyone going to convince you that it is fake? You already have your self esteem built on it, are you prepared to tear it down and start over? If you were after the genuine diamond you would never have agreed to the fake in the first place. But people want a God they can control, which perversely they do not want to admit that desire. The Real Thing has a mind of its own then they didn't mind if it was a false god as long as they have control. After a while they believed the false is real. The only practical way I could cope with this is to believe I am never completely sure I am getting this right. I can't handle this.