I don't know whether Kevin Bacon has ever cracked open Unspoken Sermons, but there are at most two degrees of separation between George MacDonald and Martin Thornton:
"...the proper Christian approach to life and religion is "ironical." In its original sense, this ambiguous word means contradictory or paradoxical; in its religious context it implies both reason and wonder in man's approach to the transcendent. According to [E.J.] Tinsley, many of our Lord's sayings are, in this sense, "irony": mysterious, paradoxical, offering simple teaching which contains inexhaustible profundity as well. To find life we are to lose it; to love God we must hate parents and friends; to be rich we need to become poor; to reach maturity means to become as little children. Such an approach implies, as G.K. Chesterton teaches so vividly, that a sense of humor is not barely permissible to religion, but a profound religious quality: pride is the worst of the sins and the worst form of pride is to take oneself too seriously. This approach is ultimately a pastoral application of the Thomist doctrine of analogy: the mind of God is both revealed in Christ and yet never directly accessible to men. We must strive to know God, love God, and trust in God, while never forgetting or creaturely limitations."
from English Spirituality: An Outline of Ascetical theology According to the English Pastoral Tradition, by Martin Thornton, Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene OR, 1986
