Quotes & Sayings About Being The Church

The Church now has been placed potentially in the control of the heavenly places once ruled by the prince of the power of the air. But this reconstituted church must engage and defeat the enemy and retake the heavenlies in the name of her Lord, so that the eyes of those still being held captive by Satan will be opened. — Ed Silvoso

I don't want to lose the awe we get to help another human being. — Francis Chan

I think this is irresponsible preaching and very dangerous, and especially when it is slanted toward children, I think it's totally irresponsible, because I see nothing biblical that points up to our being in the last days, and I just think it's an outrageous thing to do, and a lot of people are making a living - they've been making a living for 2,000 years - preaching that we're in the last days. — Charles M. Schulz

The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction which one cannot prevent and which it is not desirable to delay. Heaven has not made them to become civilized; it is necessary that they die. Besides I do not want to get mixed up in it. I will not do anything against them: I will limit myself to providing everything that will hasten their ruin. In time I will have their lands and will be innocent of their death.
Satisfied with his reasoning, the American goes to church where he hears the minister of the gospel repeat every day that all men are brothers, and that the Eternal Being who has made them all in like image, has given them all the duty to help one another. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Will-, Tessa began but it was too late, Church made a yowling noise at being woken, and lashed out with his claws. Will began to swear. Tessa left, unable to hide the slightest of smiles as she went. — Cassandra Clare

God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. And so today's church more than ever is accentuating the idea of being a people. The church therefore experiences conflicts, because it does not want a mass; it wants a people. A mass is a heap of persons, the drowsier the better, the more compliant the better. The church rejects communism's slander that it is the opium of the people. It has no intention of being the people's opium. Those that create drowsy masses are others. The church wants to rouse men and women to the true meaning of being a people. What is a people? A people is a community of persons where all cooperate for the common good. — Oscar A. Romero

A dictatorship of relativism is being built that recognizes nothing as definite, and which leaves as the ultimate measure only one's ego and desires ... Having a clear faith, according to the credo of the church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Yet relativism, that is, letting oneself being carried 'here and there by any wind of doctrine,' appears as the sole attitude good enough for modern times. — Pope Benedict XVI

My concern is that many of our churches in America have gone from being sanctuaries to becoming stadiums. And every week all the fans come to the stadium where they cheer for Jesus but have no interest in truly following him. The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren't actually interested in following Christ. — Kyle Idleman

Christians struggle with hypocrisy because of our core confusion about what Christianity means. We tend to believe that Christianity is more about being good than about following Jesus.5 If we believe this, when we try to share our beliefs with others, we talk more about attending church, praying a sinner's prayer, and becoming a good person than about Jesus. The result is that we become known for morality, not for our love of Jesus. — Dale Fincher

Pastor of the Warsaw Baptist Church, Dr. Peters was tall, gaunt, and pale, with a weak damp smile and cold damp palms: shaking his hand was like being forced to grasp the flaccid penis of a hypothermic zombie. — Tom Robbins

It is not too much to say that whoever wishes to become a truly moral human being (and let us not ask whether or not this is possible; I think we must believe that it is possible) must first divorce himself from all the prohibitions, crimes, and hypocrisies of the Christian church. If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him. I — James Baldwin

It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now this dogma would make it impossible for me to be a Roman Catholic. If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The key to maturity is time and community. Discernment and godly wisdom develop in a community that spans generations. The church is called to be this place where the [God's] Spirit uses normal patterns and rhythms of the Christian life in a community, so that we may bear fruit like a well-watered tree. Despite common appearances, the church is the place where God's new creation is coming into existence and being sustained by the Spirit like a great vineyard. — Michael Horton

They'd started out as a church, or in a church, not liking anyone being gay or getting abortions or using birth control. Protesting military funerals, which was a thing. Basically they were just assholes, though, and took it as the measure of God's satisfaction with them that everybody else thought they were assholes. — William Gibson

Being the head of the home isn't the same as controlling," David said. "It means being the spiritual leader. The Scripture you may have heard is from Ephesians: 'Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.' But for whatever reason, most people don't read the verse before it that says, 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,' and the one after it, 'Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. — Beth Wiseman

We look for this security by fortifying and enclosing ourselves in innumerable ways. We want the protection of being "exclusive" and "special," seeking to belong to the safest church, the best nation, the highest class, the right set, and the "nice" people. These defenses lead to divisions between us, and so to more insecurity demanding more defenses. Of course it is all done in the sincere belief that we are trying to do the right things and live in the best way; but this, too, is a contradiction. — Alan W. Watts

I'll always remember being called by my mother who beckoned me to look at the screen where a young man was being tortured by the church. Bag over his head, rolling on the ground, crying, suffocating, vomiting while the congression continues yelling chants, "God will save you!" treating him like the devil's child.

It was the first time I've ever doubted God. First time I've ever heard the terms 'Gays, and 'Queers.' I went through a lot in my childhood, but this was the first I've ever been so traumatized. My mom tells me they deserved it and the church tries to justify their actions as if it was the most intelligent excuse in the world. At 12 years old, I knew only one thing. I would never be like them. — Merlin

Oments of transport, and of comfort, and of a bracing vastness of possibility. That was all there for me sometimes when I plunged my mind into the Bible's puzzles; and it was always there in the music of church. I wouldn't have said it this way then. But I would feel all the cells in my body as I sang hymns that connected my little life with the grandeur of the cosmos, the Christian drama across space and time. This was my earliest experience of breath and body, mind and spirit soaring together, alive to both mystery and reality, in kinship with others both familiar and unknown. That's one way I'd define the feeling of faith now. — Krista Tippett

The church lacks purpose, because we have lost the true power of the Holy Spirit. In the book of acts we saw miracles, and a true purpose driven church, we have traded in our power for money, and material wealth.In most churches preaching has been watered down to motivational speaking. The power of the gospel, is now a distant thought, how do we get a renewal of the power of God, by become the church. Most Christians leave Jesus at church, the power comes when Jesus lives not in the church but in the inside of us. In most churches preaching is being heard, that says God no longer does miracles. But I believe that the greatest miracle of the early Church was there power to live, and die for God. — Jordan Wells

Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die. — Forrest Church

By operating independently of government aid, the churches ... avoid the resentment of those who do not want to be forced to contribute to churches to which they do not belong and of their own members who do not welcome being forced to contribute through government taxation. — John M Swomley

Aquinas said if you have knowledge you don't need faith, and I think he was on to something, but for now all I can do is find the Church of Inadvertent Joy, and if and when I do, I'll stumble in and drop fifty cents in the brass-plated poor box, ignite a beeswax candle and confess myself at the crossroads. Having professed my faithlessness, I will be blessed, and the psoriasis or eczema that's thickened my feet and shattered the skin of my hands will instantly melt, for confession is good for the sole and fine for the fingers. Aquinas also said evil is a privation, ergo hell is a place that's a void. The heavenly need for placement being motivation for all maps, including a face. — Vanessa Place

Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people's thirst for God, lest they try to satisfy it with alienating solutions or with a disembodied Jesus who demands nothing of us with regard to others. Unless these people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God (89 — Anonymous

is also time for a final break with our theologically grounded reserve about whatever is being done by the state-which really only comes down to fear. "Speak out for those who cannot in the church today still remembers that this is the very least the Bible asks of us in such times as these? — Keith Clements

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing. — Ernest Gaines

The funeral was held at St. Mary's Catherdral of San Francisco, which has the distinction of being the only church in the world designed after a washing-machine agitator. — Christopher Moore

From the time I can remember my mother kept me in church. I think my first recollection of any place, being anywhere was in a church. — Teddy Pendergrass

Within my hearing you have spoken of the beauty of this small city. How standing inside the stained-glass confection of the old church was like being imprisoned inside a kaleidoscope of jewels. It was like being in the heart of the sun. — Neil Gaiman

A good preacher, for example, must be able to exegete not only the text but also the culture of the hearers in order to be a faithful and fruitful missionary. We are to bring the gospel through the church to the world and avoid allowing the world to influence the church and corrupt the gospel. This definition also hints at the thoroughness required in contextualization. It must be comprehensive. This involves examining every aspect of the text being preached and the truth being explained through the eyes of those who are listening to that truth.17 This is why a missional pastor should always preach as if there are unbelievers in the crowd. He should never assume that his audience is comprised only of those already convinced of the truth and power of the gospel. We must literally consider everything we do through the lens of the unbeliever, always asking the question, "How does this come across to unbelievers?"18 — Darrin Patrick

The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer. — Leonard Ravenhill

Protestantism and Catholicism must not be compared to Sunnism and Shi'ism in the Islamic context as has been done by certain scholars. Sunnism and Shi'ism both go back to the origins of Islam and the very beginning of Islamic history whereas Protestantism is a later protest against the existing Catholic Church and came into being some fifteen hundred years after the foundation of Christianity. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

I believe in Supreme Being, a Creator, whoever he may be, it's of no importance to me, who put us here on earth to do our duty as citizens and fathers; but I don't need to go to church and kiss silver platters and dig into my pocket to fatten up a lot of humbugs who eat better than you or I do! Because he can be worshiped just as well in a wood, a field, or even just gazing at the ethereal vault, like the ancients. — Gustave Flaubert

Religion triggers a lot of emotions in me, most of which stem from being raised Jewish in a very Baptist community in the South. I didn't believe any of it from an early age - the clubby quality of whatever religion or church you belonged to, Judaism included. It just struck me as foolish. — David Cross

I don't have a religion. I ain't nothing wrong with church as long as they selling chicken. Cause I read the Quran, I read the Kabalah, I read the Bible. They all got the same three basic principles: Love God, love your neighbor as yourself, and ... As far as me being, I live by those principles. — Kevin Gates

Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity. — John Piper

The character I play has all these revolutionary ideas. I think the classic thing is that majority people who are criticising it probably have never read the books, and need to. And I'm sure that the Catholic Church, which is being directed as you know, can handle it. — Daniel Craig

It didn't seem to matter that Reagan made his heartfelt endorsements of traditional family values despite being divorced and so alienated from his own children that one of them would write a book about what a rotten father he had been; by the same token, the president's failure to have made regular or even occasional visits to church hardly dimmed his appeal for the resurgent religious right — Douglas Brinkley

I did not worry about what a man or woman personally believed, but the nation's official religion should be outwardly practiced by all its citizens. A religion was a political statement. Being a Calvinist, a papist, a Presbyterian, an Anglican labeled a person's philosophy on education, taxes, poor relief, and other secular things. The nation needed an accepted position on such concerns. Hence the fines for not outwardly conforming to the national church. — Margaret George

Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches. Almost, the vote was against them. But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote. Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy. But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven. — Jerry Falwell

I am not saying that the Renaissance in any way was a feminist movement - hardly. But the arts flourished, and in more social settings as opposed to being confined to the church. — Kathryn Lasky

I wonder if you know just what it means to pious?"
"Goin' to church, and readin' the Bible, and sayin' prayers and hymns, ain't it?"
"Those things are a part of it; but being kind and cheerful, doing one's duty, helping others, and loving God, is the best way to show that are pious in the true sense of the word. — Louisa May Alcott

This is what the Church is all about. It is a redemptive fellowship of forgiven sinners who are in the slow, difficult process of being transformed into saints by the grace of God. — Stanley S. Harakas

Being a member of a church means realizing that we are responsible for helping the brothers and sisters around us to grow as disciples of Jesus. In the same way, they are responsible for helping us. We desperately need each other in the daily fight to follow Christ in a world that's full of sin. — David Platt

It was not long before the possibly serious translation errors uncovered in the Vulgate threatened to force revision of existing church teachings. Erasmus pointed out some of these in 1516. An excellent example is found in the Vulgate translation of the opening words of Jesus's ministry in Galilee (Matthew 4:17) as: "do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This translation creates a direct link between the coming of God's kingdom and the sacrament of penance. Erasmus pointed out that the original Greek text should be translated as: "repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." Where the Vulgate seemed to refer to an outward practice (the sacrament of penance), Erasmus insisted that the reference was to an inward psychological attitude - that of "being repentant. — Alister E. McGrath

The next Post brought a reply from the starets, who wrote to him that the cause of all his trouble lay in his pride. His Wrathful Outburst, the starets explained, had come about because it was not for God that he had humbled himself, rejecting honours and advancement in the church - not for God, but to satisfy his own pride, to be able to tell himself how virtuous he was, seeking nothing for self. That was why he had not been able to endure the Superior's conduct. Because he felt that he had given up everything for God, and now he was being put on display, like some strange beast.
If it were for God you had given up advancement, you would have let it pass.
worldly pride is still alive in you. — Leo Tolstoy

The Holy Spirit gives us joy. And he is joy. Joy is the gift in which all the other gifts are included. It is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with ourselves, that which can only come from being in harmony with God and with his creation. It belongs to the nature of joy to be radiant; it must communicate itself. The missionary spirit of the Church is none other than the impulse to communicate the joy which has been given. — Pope Benedict XVI

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it's the real test of your character and of your faith to say, 'Things are not going our way, but I'm still being good to people; I'm still attending church; I still have a good attitude.' — Joel Osteen

She went as through a forest
the columns were furrowed like ancient trees, and in through the forest flowed the light, many-hued and clear as song, from the pictured windows. High up above her, beasts and men sported among the stone leafage, and angels played
and yet far, dizzily far higher, the vaulting soared, lifting the church towards God. In a hall that lay to one side, worship was being held at an altar. Kristin sank down on her knees by a pillar. The singing cut into her like a too strong light. Now she saw how low she lay in the dust ... Pater noster. Credo in unum Deum. Ave Maria, gratia plena. — Sigrid Undset

The peculiar idea that bigger is better has been around for at least as long as I have, and it's always bothered me. There is within it the implication that it is more difficult for God to care about a gnat than about a galaxy. Creation is just as visible in a grain of sand as in a skyful of stars.
The church is not immune from the bigger-is-better heresy. One woman told of going to a meeting where only a handful of people turned out, and these faithful few were scolded by the visiting preacher for the sparseness of the congregation. And she said indignantly, 'Our Lord said *feed* my sheep, not count them!' I often feel that I'm being counted, rather than fed, and so I am hungry. — Madeleine L'Engle

We must learn, then, not to HAVE a spirituality, something we turn on at a particular place or time, but to BE spiritual, as a habit of life, a continuous state of being. It is to this end that we seek after God in the stillness and hubbub of life, but always and everywhere in and through the church, where Christ is made present to us and, through us, to the world. — Robert E. Webber

The church is called to embody the boundless love of God by being a community of radical welcome to all God's children. — Alexia Salvatierra

...much of what the church calls sin is simply being human. — Ursula Hegi

O music! A melody occurs to you; you sing it silently, inwardly only; you steep your being in it; it takes possession of all your strength and emotions, and during the time it lives in you, it effaces all that is fortuitous, evil, coarse, and sad in you; it brings the world into harmony with you, it makes burdens light and gives wings to depressed spirits. The melody of a folk song can do that. And first of all harmony! For each harmonious chord of pure-toned notes - those of church bells, for example - fills the spirit with grace and delight, a feeling that is intensified by every additional note; and at times this can enchant the heart and make it tremble with bliss as no other sensual pleasure can. — Hermann Hesse

She'd seen them on the news, compassionate Americans talking about how the United States should be more welcoming to people who came in peace. She believed these kindhearted people, like Natasha, would never betray them, and she wanted to tell Jende this, that the people of Judson Memorial Church loved immigrants, that their secret was safe with Natasha. But she also knew it would be futile reasoning with a raging man, so she decided to sit quietly with her head bowed as he unleashed a verbal lashing, as he called her a stupid idiot and a bloody fool. The man who had promised to always take care of her was standing above her vomiting a parade of insults, spewing out venom she never thought he had inside him. For the first time in a long love affair, she was afraid he would beat her. She was almost certain he would beat her. And if he had, she would have known that it was not her Jende who was beating her but a grotesque being created by the sufferings of an American immigrant life. — Imbolo Mbue

At the sessions after I was indicted for an upholder and maintainer of unlawful assemblies and conventicles, and for not conforming to the national worship of the church of England; and after some conference there with the justices, they taking my plain dealing with them for a confession, as they termed it, of the indictment, did sentence me to a perpetual banishment, because I refused to conform. So being again delivered up to the jailer's hands, I was had home to prison, and there have lain now complete twelve years, waiting to see what God would suffer these men to do with me. — John Bunyan

It is solely the form of Christ that matters, not any form besides Christ's own. The church is the human being who has become human, has been judged, and has been awakened to new life in Christ. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I grew up in the church not being able to listen to anything but gospel. So, while [other] people grew up with their parents listening to Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin, I never knew they existed until I was able to listen to what I wanted to. — Rahki

For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth's glory, believes that in each person is the Creator's image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God's rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God's images. There is no dichotomy between man and God's image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God's image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom. — Oscar A. Romero

It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church. — Matthew Henry

That is the power of the Eucharist. At the communion table you have rich and poor together in the early church and they were being challenged. — Shane Claiborne

The Church's challenge is staying close to the people, close to the people of the United States, not being a detached Church from the people but close to them, close, close, and this is something that the Church in the United States has understood and understood well. — Pope Francis

Almost every Bible conference majors on today's Church being like the Ephesian Church. We are told that, despite our sin and carnality, we are seated with Him. Alas, what a lie! We are Ephesians all right; but, as the Ephesian Church in the Revelation, we have 'left our first love!' We appease sin - but do not oppose it. To such a cold, carnal, critical, care-cowed Church, this lax, loose, lustful, licentious age will never capitulate. Let us stop looking for scapegoats. The fault in declining morality is not radio or television. The whole blame for the present international degeneration and corruption lies at the door of the Church! — Leonard Ravenhill

I think most people, if I asked, would say, "Yes, of course I believe." But I think for a great many of them it doesn't really make much difference in terms of either what they do with their lives or with their own inner well-being. They believe because so did grandfather, and that's the same church they've been going to all these years. — Frederick Buechner

Although I claim to be a Christian, I live at a moment in time when the Christian faith is being defined by fundamentalists who have dishonored Christ and are in the process of destroying His church. I refuse to wear the 'Christian' label without redefining it. — Mel White

From what cause the rite of baptism first proceeded is not expressed formally in the scripture, but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning leprosy, wherein the leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the camp of Israel for a certain time, after which time being judged by the priest to be clean, he was admitted into the camp after a solemn washing. And this may therefore be a type of the washing in baptism, wherein such men as are cleansed of the leprosy of Sin by Faith, are received into the church with the solemnity of baptism. — Thomas Hobbes

The Churches of the Standing Order were filled with unconverted persons, with many who had grown up in them from infancy, being introduced at that time by christening; and but a small proportion of their members made any claim to a spiritual regeneration. The intuitions of a converted soul recoil from Church associations with those whose only claim to membership in Christ's mystical body is a ceremony performed over an unconscious infant, for the renewed man seeks fellowship with those who, like himself, have exercised faith in Christ's saving merits, and he is likely to take the Scriptures for his guide in seeking his Church home. — Thomas Armitage

One cannot pass without interruption from Christ to the Church. The Cross stands between. In being the Body of Christ, the Church meets her Lord; she does not prolong Him, but she expresses Him here and now. She does not replace Him, but makes Him visible, demonstrates Him without being confounded with Him. — T.F. Torrance

The silence of those in positions of influence in the church who know, or have a strong suspicion, that being gay is a nonpathological minority variant in the human condition drives me crazy, far crazier than I am driven by any loud-mouthed purveyor of hateful nonsense. — James Alison

My dear,' said the old men gently, 'I think that you are repeating what you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy; but you are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead what part of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a real pleasure. — E. M. Forster

Julian recognized that the strength of the orthodox Church rested to a great extent on the imperial discrimination in its favour. According to Ammianus, he tried to atomize the Church by ending the system:
'He ordered the priests of the different Christian sects, and their supporters to be admitted to the palace, and politely expressed his wish that, their quarrels being over, each might follow his own beliefs without hindrance or fear. He thought that freedom to argue their beliefs would simply deepen their differences, so that he would never be faced by a united common people. He found from experience that no wild beasts are as hostile to men, as Christians are to each other.' — Paul Johnson

The catch is that for most people the New Testament is taken as proof for the conventional picture of Christian origins, and the conventional picture is taken as proof for the way in which the New Testament was written. . . . For this reason the New Testament is commonly viewed and treated as a charter document that came into being much like the Constitution of the United States. According to this view, the authors of the New Testament were all present at the historic beginnings of the new religion and collectively wrote their gospels and letters for the purpose of founding the Christian church that Jesus came to inaugurate. Unfortunately for this view, that is not the way it happened. — Burton L. Mack

Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as "a place where the person you least want to live with always lives." His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?) — Philip Yancey

Every time you walk into church, the first thing you see is a man on a cross. He died to save us-not to give us everything we want-to save us. That's what's so hard to understand. It's not about him answering your prayers-it's about you being like him not matter what happens on this Earth. 'Thy will be done.' There will always be sadness and pain. — Jack Mayer

So in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea. — Marcel Proust

Each restorational advancement of the Army of the Lord has established denominational forts that are given responsibility to maintain the purity and power of that truth ... New recruits are now being drafted and trained and older soldiers and generals are being put through intensified training for the next advancement of the Church Army. They are being purified by the Baptism of Fire ... Are you ready? Where do you start? What will you do? A new government must be established, a new way of life for those millions of people. You are now ready to rule and reign on your overcomer's throne! — Bill Hamon

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action. — Pope Paul VI

Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration. As for other practical opinions, though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not tend to establish domination over others, or civil impunity to the Church in which they are taught, there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated. — John Locke

I loosened my grip on my opinions. I entered recovery for being such a know-it-all. I stopped expecting everyone to experience God or church or life like I thought it should be done. In fact, I stopped using the word should about God altogether, I sought God, and he was faithful to answer me. — Sarah Bessey

If we think of belonging only as membership in a club, organization, or church, we miss the point. Belonging is the risk to move beyond the world we know, to venture out on pilgrimage, to accept exile. And it is the risk of being with companions on that journey, God, a spouse, friends, children, mentors, teachers, people who came from the same place we did, people who came from entirely different places, saints and sinners of all sorts, those known to us and those unknown, our secret longings, questions, and fears. — Diana Butler Bass

It's a matter of each of the two churches being very deeply enculturated in its own setting and having difficulty understand the other. — Justo L. Gonzalez

Scheffer said a new ethnic underclass of immigrants had formed, and it was much too insular, rejecting the values that knit together Dutch society and creating new, damaging social divisions. There wasn't enough insistence on immigrants adapting; teachers even questioned the relevance of teaching immigrant children Dutch history, and a whole generation of these children were being written off under a pretence of tolerance. Scheffer said there was no place in Holland for a culture that rejected the separation of church and state and denied rights to women and homosexuals. He foresaw social unrest. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

If all you are doing is spending time with the struggling members of your church and you are not building proactively into your church's culture, and you are being shortsighted and limiting the effectiveness of your ministry. — James MacDonald

Even more than in the concert hall, in church there are things you can and cannot do, just out of respect. You would never have the sound of someone being nailed to a cross, or the sound of a child being born, because everybody knows the story. We know that we're meant to feel a complicated raft of things. — Nico Muhly

The Fathers intent desire is that none would 'perish'. The promise God has given us is one of 'liberation'- Freedom. Being set free "from" captivity and reconciled "to" your Father. Intimacy with Jesus garners son-ship with Abba. As Jesus "demonstrated" that Son-ship of Grace he said, 'I only "say" and "do" what I hear the Father saying and doing'. Proclaiming the Kingdom of God by "Do'in the Stuff". The early church 'got' Jesus. John Wimber 're-got' Jesus and began proclaiming the Kingdom and demonstrating it as any loving son would of his Father. Now, we are no longer refuges but 'Bona Fide' citizens in good standing with our King and our new country. Where Love, Mercy, Grace; Peace 'rains' on us eternally here and now. 'The Already But Not Yet' (Ruis)."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

We've come to understand sin as a kind of moral failing, but that interpretation actually comes from the power structures of the church and religious authorities. If you can convince somebody that they are inherently impure and that there is a mistake at the center of their being, then sin becomes a wrongdoing that deserves blame. — Adyashanti

Close examination of the evidence shows that the poor were being included in private education, and only those who did not want to go to school were missing out. There was no need for public school except as a tool to undermine the church's influence in education. — Gregg Harris

I think it was a sense of being completely swallowed up by nature that gave the prairie its powerful attraction.There is nothing like it in all of Europe. Even high up on a Swiss glacier one is still conscious of the toy villages below, the carefully groomed landscape of multicolored fields,the faraway ringing of a church bell. It is all very beautiful, but it does not convey the utmost escape. I believe, with the Indians, that a landscape influences and forms the people living on it and that one cannot understand them and make friends with them without also understanding, and making friends with, the earth from which they came. — Richard Erdoes

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist. — Bono

On many occasions I have been asked if I think persecution will come to the Western church. My answer might surprise you. I believe that if you find yourself enslaved inside a controlling church structure of legalism and bondage, then you are already being persecuted! So many Christians seem impossibly distracted from hearing God's voice. Instead of listening to that still, small voice that brings true peace and joy, they blindly follow the voices of mainstream religion. The worst kind of persecution for a Christian is when you are separated from the joy and presence of the Holy Spirit. — Brother Yun

The casket sat in the front of the church, open to all. I didn't look. Whoever was there wan't Jules. Jules was at the ocean now, being a seagull. Dancing. And free. — Davida Wills Hurwin

For the church as we know it is a tragically dysfunctional family, in which some children are starving while others have food stashed in their closets. Some of us are living on the street while others have empty rooms in our homes. And, of course, there are all sorts of things being done that bring great dishonor and embarrassment to the family name. — Shane Claiborne

Let us not fear the opposition of men; every great movement in the Church from Paul down to modern times has been criticized on the ground that it promoted scensoriousness and intolerance and disputing. Of course the gospel of Christ, in a world of sin and doubt will cause disputing; and if does not cause disputing and arrouse bitter opposition, that is a fairly sure sign that it is not being faithfully proclaimed. — John Gresham Machen

Jeff Chu's pilgrimage across America to discover his own place as a gay man in the Christian church as well as attitudes about being gay and Christian across denominations is at once timely, smart, poignant, disturbing, inspiring, and maddening. It's essential reading for anyone who cares about the rights of the LGBTQ community to be treated as equal citizens at every level, including the religious-which means it should be essential reading for everybody. — Donna Freitas

Genesis supplements "created in God's image" with the affirmation that God thus made humanity "male and female." Women and men together comprise this image. The statement is an extraordinary one in this opening chapter of Genesis, written in a patriarchal culture. One might wonder whether the author of Genesis saw the implications of this declaration. Certainly generation after generation of Christians have not seen it. We have often talked and behaved as if the male was the normal and full form of a human being, with the female a deviant and slightly inferior form. But both male and female belong to the image. You have the image of God represented in humanity only when you have both men and women there. When women are not present and involved in God's work in the world (and in the church), the image of God is not present. — John E. Goldingay

I need to find a church on Sunday. I need to say 'please' and 'thank you,' 'yes sir' and 'no ma'am.' Do the little things because that's part of being an adult. — Joe Nichols

People learn to shop for churches; there is no loyalty to the church. They're consumers being attracted to one product or another. I think it's sacrilege, to tell you the truth, it really is. — Eugene H. Peterson

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. [] Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. [] Whatsoever [the bishop] shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid. — Ignatius Of Antioch

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service. — Mahatma Gandhi

For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgement of sin as a condition for membership. — R.C. Sproul

Whenever we give our hearts in love, the burden of our vulnerability grows. We risk being rebuffed or embarrassed or inadequate. Beyond these things, we risk the enormous pain of loss. When those we love die, a part of us dies with them. When those we love are sick, in body or spirit, we too feel the pain. All of this is worth it. Especially the pain. If we insulate our hearts from suffering, we shall only subdue the very thing that makes life worth living. We cannot protect ourselves from loss. We can only protect ourselves from the death of love, we are left only with the aching hollow of regret, that haunting emptiness where love might have been. — Forrest Church