G. Bosch

“Benedict (480–547) also put a greater emphasis on the Christian life as being in the service of magnifying God's name. Manual labor was as much religious ministry as prayer, and everything came under the heading U.I.O.G.D.: Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus (“That in all things God may be glorified”).””

“Both these approaches were, each in its own way, attempts at salvaging theology as “science.” For both, theology remained rational knowledge. Both were responses to the challenge of the Enlightenment and, more particularly, to the growing awareness of the “ugly ditch” (G. E. Lessing) that had opened between the time and culture of the Bible and the fundamentally different modern world. Each experienced ongoing history as a threat, since the distance between the then and the now was increasingly becoming unbridgeable. At the same time, no effort was spared to bridge the “ugly ditch.” Indefatigably biblical scholars researched the ancient texts in an attempt to uncover the mind of the author and, in this way, put the modern reader in the immediate company of the original author, as it were, so that he or she may hear the author unhampered by the events of the intervening history. In true Enlightenment fashion, science was understood to be cumulative; if scholars could only persist hard enough and amass more and more data, they would reach the point where the original text and the intention of the original author would be established beyond any reasonable doubt.””

“You thought we were fighting over you?!" said Leira....Mira shook her head in exaggerated amazement. "O-M-G. You did! You thought we had crushes on you."..."I don't know - I didn't really - it's just..." Clay stammered. "That's what they said." He pointed lamely at their friends.””