Crash-Test Dummies that we are

This is one of those oft-heared, oft-copied quotes sometimes usurped by people like myself who aren't smart enough to read an entire book by somebody as obscure as an Annie Dillard.

In regards to our contemporary satisfaction with how the Gospels and life come together:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anybody have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velevet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.