A Bible in the Hand

"But sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of [another]. . . . There are some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one." (from chapter 5)

That seems to be one of the defining continuums in Christian theology, between what God requires of one in this life and the hope of something better in the next. Where one falls on that continuum has about as much impact as anything else on moral and political views. The tension is always present, the need to model this world after the next (and what exactly that should look like) versus the acknowledgment that it never can be. I think the fact that I picked this quote says a little something about where I fall.