Christian Doctrines Quotes & Sayings

Is your Christian experience a set of definitions, a list of orthodox doctrines, or a living relationship with God? — Warren W. Wiersbe

Christianity is not a set of beliefs or doctrines one believes in order to be a Christian, but rather Christianity is to have one's body shaped, one's habits determined, in such a way that the worship of God is unavoidable. — Stanley Hauerwas

For I choose to follow not men or men's doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by Him. For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this [truth], and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians — Justin Martyr

The preeminent job of the church is to equip Christian for life's challenges. This requires the emphasis on being fitted with tested armor. He is tutored in the Word of God. He is encouraged to rely on the Lord alone through faith in His promises and providence. He is drilled in the doctrines of salvation and is encouraged to allow these truths to work themselves deep into his soul. He is encouraged to live righteously by having within him a righteous mind soaked in Scripture and demonstrated in right living. He is taught how to pray. He is encouraged to share his faith with those who do not have peace with God.
Chapter — John Bunyan

Church members as well should realize that persistent divisive grumbling and complaining can cost them their church family. Paul put it this way in Romans 16:17, "Watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. " Notice that it says of them, "Such people are not serving Christ, but their own appetites." In other words, these individuals who tear up churches and who teach doctrines contrary to what they learned are selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent individuals with whom believers are to have no fellowship. Unity in Christ doesn't mean that you have Christian fellowship with everyone, but only those who are biblical. — Richard L. Ganz

In the summer of 2007, I was sitting in a studio in Dublin, debating with a lay spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church who turned out to be the only believing Christian on a discussion panel of five people. He was a perfectly nice and rather modest logic-chopping polemicist, happy enough to go for a glass of refreshment after the program, and I suddenly felt a piercing stab of pity for him. A generation ago in Ireland, the Church did not have to lower itself in this way. It raised its voice only slightly, and was instantly obeyed by the Parliament, the schools, and the media. It could and did forbid divorce, contraception, the publication of certain books, and the utterance of certain opinions. Now it is discredited and in decline. Its once-absolute doctrines appear ridiculous: — Christopher Hitchens

The Christian religion and National Socialist doctrines are not compatible. — Martin Bormann

There have been applied sciences throughout the ages ... However this so-called practice was not much more than paper in nearly all of these cases, and the various applied sciences were only lacking a bagatelle, namely proper scientific practice. The applied sciences show the application of theoretic doctrines in existing events; but that is precisely what it does, it merely shows. Whereas the scientific practice autonomously puts to use these theories. — Christian Doppler

Why is it that we have a tendency to lazily assume other Christians have been the kind of dedicated, motivated, responsible, knowledgeable experts on Bible doctrines that we have never cared enough to become? — Len Smith

What kind of authority can there be for an 'Apostle' who, unlike the other Apostles, had never been prepared for the Apostolic office in Jesus' own school but had only later dared to claim the Apostolic office on the basis of his own authority? The only question comes to be how the apostle Paul appears in his Epistles to be so indifferent to the historical facts of the life of Jesus ... He bears himself but little like a disciple who has received the doctrines and the principles which he preaches from the Master whose name he bears. — Ferdinand Christian Baur

To the corruptions of christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other. — Thomas Jefferson

Humans, particularly those influenced by the Judeo-Christian ethic, see themselves as rulers of the earth, an attitude stemming not from divine doctrines, but rather from human interpretation of them. Those governed by such erroneous tenets look upon animals as chattels, organisms that have been divinely created for human use and convenience. But domestic animals are the work of man. The wolf and all other wild beings are the work of nature; they are PURE WILD, gloriously so. This is why a wolf can never be owned; it cannot be mastered. — R.D. Lawrence

When, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his [Jesus'] day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. — Thomas Jefferson

Far deeper objections may be felt - and have been expressed - against my use of the word Christian to mean one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity. People ask: 'Who are you, to lay down who is, and who is not a Christian?' or 'May not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?' Now this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every available quality except that of being useful. We simply cannot, without disaster, use language as these objectors want us to use it. I will try to make this clear by the history of another, and very much less important, word. — C.S. Lewis

I am not a Bible-believing Christian in the fullest sense simply by believing the right doctrines, but as I live in practice in this supernatural world. — Francis A. Schaeffer

American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for the Next Big Thing. We're growing bored with the ordinary means of God's grace, attending church week in and week out. Doctrines and disciplines that have shaped faithful Christian witness in the past are often marginalized or substituted with newer fashions or methods. The new and improved may dazzle us for a moment, but soon they have become "so last year". Michael Horton, Ordinary, 16 — Michael S. Horton

The scriptures are basically a narrative of God's interaction with human kind. If we lose this notion of God's desire for relationship with human beings, we're in danger of losing the heart of the Christian faith. Doctrines, of course, will flow from that, but when the scriptures call us to Believe, we're being called to put our trust in Someone, not just agree with a bunch of doctrine. Demons could do that. We are to commit ourselves to Christ. — Paul Copan

Demanding a separation between church and state isn't enough; the churches' basic doctrines must be changed, with homophobia written out forever. — Michelangelo Signorile

I've come to see that just as the Doctrine of Discovery was used to justify white Christian supremacy and the exploitation of nonwhites and non-Christians, the "doctrine of dominion" (Genesis 1:28) is still being used to justify human supremacy and the exploitation of the earth and all its creatures. Aided and abetted by harmful doctrines about the future (especially "left behind" dispensationalist eschatology), industrial-era Christians have used toxic, industrial-strength beliefs to legitimize the plundering of the earth, without concern for future generations of humans, much less our fellow creatures. After all, if Jesus is coming back soon, and if God will soon destroy the earth and take righteous souls to heaven, who cares about the earth? What's a little human domination in comparison to divine damnation? — Brian D. McLaren

Yet opponents should not herald the demise of evangelicalism. Although much of popular evangelicalism cannot intellectually meet the analyses that call it into question as a viable explanation for human origins and destiny, for most evangelicals it does not need to. Because of the transition from comprehending their religion as a set of doctrines to conceptualizing their religion as an emotional relationship with God, evangelicals have actually made their religion more resilient to intellectual challenges. Calling into question evangelicalism's intellectual foundation ultimately does not undermine the religion because for many evangelicals their adherence was never about those foundations anyway. Evangelicalism becomes true because it FEELS true. Modern evangelicalism has largely transitioned to a new form of truth, one based not on intellectual assent to propositions but on emotional connections. — Todd M. Brenneman

The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small part of the human race, & even among Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! — Robert E.Lee

This doctrine of forgiveness of sin is a premium on crime. 'Forgive us our sins' means "Let us continue in our iniquity." It is one of the most pernicious of doctrines, and one of the most fruitful sources of immorality. It has been the chief cause of making Christian nations the most immoral of nations. In teaching this doctrine Christ committed a sin for which his death did not atone, and which can never be forgiven. There is no forgiveness of sin. Every cause has its effect; every sinner must suffer the consequences of his sins. — John E. Remsburg

Theology is like a map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God
experiences compared with which many thrills of pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further you must use the map. — C.S. Lewis

In your intercourse with sects, the sublime and abstruse doctrines of Christian belief belong to the Church; but the faith of the individual, centred in his heart, is, or may be, collateral to them. Faith is subjective. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians. — Thomas Jefferson

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others. — Thomas Jefferson

When a minister or a clergyman takes seriously unfashionable Christian doctrines which condemn sex outside marriage, homosexuality, abortion, and feminism, and injects his views into the political debate, he is immediately denounced as a 'reactionary.' — Benjamin Hart

Fusing the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus with the creeds and beliefs of Christianity, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite combined the Neo-Platonic conviction of the fundamental oneness and luminous aliveness of the world with the Christian dogmas of the triune God, original sin and redemption. The universe is created, animated and unified by the perpetual self-realization of what Plotinus had called "the One," what the Bible had called "the Lord," and what he calls "the superessential Light. — Erwin Panofsky

Our discernment of Christian doctrines must include a basic knowledge of the history of the church. — Anonymous

Some religions actually go so far as to label anyone who belongs to a religious sect other than their own a heretic, even though the overall doctrines and impressions of godliness are nearly the same. For example: The Catholics believe the Protestants are doomed to Hell simply because they do not belong to the Catholic Church. In the same way, many splinter groups of the Christian faith, such as the evangelical or revivalist churches, believe the Catholics worship graven images. (Christ is depicted in the image that is most physiologically akin to the individual worshipping him, and yet the Christians criticize "heathens" for the worship of graven images.) And the Jews have always been given the Devil's name. — Anton Szandor LaVey

Mr. James Mooney investigated this interesting phenomenon and actually discovered the Seer, who proved to be an inoffensive visionary dwelling in a remote valley of the Southwest. This young man's life and theories (a full-blood, apparently untouched by Christian influence), curiously resembled those of Christ, and like the latter, he preached the doctrines of Nonresistance and the Brotherhood of Man. In this case our government played the part of Rome. — Carl Sandburg

There is nothing more foolish or self-defeating than for a Christian to say that he is not interested in doctrines. — David Lloyd-Jones

For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ... Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men. — Joseph Fielding Smith

The Christian "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection — C.S. Lewis

The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticism of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from it's indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. — Thomas Jefferson

Obama did not want to join a historically Christian black church in Chicago that took traditional Christian doctrines seriously. Rather, he sought out a liberal church that would help him advance his budding political career. Remnick notes that Obama could have joined "Reverend Arthur Brazier's enormous Pentecostal church on the South Side." But he didn't, and Brazier explained to Remnick why Obama didn't join his church: Reverend Wright and I are on different levels of Christian perspective. Reverend Wright is more into black liberation, he is more of a humanitarian type who sought to free African-Americans from plantation policies. My view was more on the spiritual side. I was more concerned, as I am today, with people accepting Jesus Christ. Winning souls for Christ. The civil-rights movement was an adjunct; as a Christian, you couldn't close your eyes to the injustice. But in my opinion the church was not established to do that. It was to win souls for Christ. — Phyllis Schlafly

The true Christian was intended by Christ to prove all things by the Word of God: all churches, all ministers, all teaching, all preaching, all doctrines, all sermons, all writings, all opinions, all practices. These are his marching orders. Prove all by the Word of God; measure all by the measure of the Bible; compare all with the standard of the Bible; weigh all in the balances of the Bible; examine all by the light of the Bible; test all in the crucible of the Bible. That which cannot abide the fire of the Bible, reject, refuse, repudiate, and cast away. This is the flag which he nailed to the mast. May it never be lowered! — John Wycliffe

to some parts of biblical teaching," and "B" beliefs, which contradict Christian truth ("B" doctrines) and "lead listeners to find some Christian doctrines implausible or overtly offensive." Take a moment to identify a key "A" doctrine - a teaching from the Bible that would be generally accepted and affirmed by your target culture - and how it expresses itself in the culture through "A" beliefs. What is an example of a "B" belief in your culture, and what "B" doctrines does it conflict with directly? 4. Keller writes, "It is important to learn how to distinguish a culture's A.' doctrines from its 'B' doctrines because knowing which are which provides the key to compelling confrontation. This happens when we base our argument for 'B' doctrines directly on the A.' doctrines." Using the examples you discussed — Timothy J. Keller

The true value of the Christian religion rests, not upon speculative views of the Creator, which must necessarily be different in each individual, according to the extent of the knowledge of the finite being, who employs his own feeble powers in contemplating the infinite:;: but it rests upon those doctrines of kindness and benevolence which that religion claims and enforces, not merely in favour of man himself but of every creature susceptible of pain or of happiness. — Charles Babbage

Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus ... I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. — Thomas Jefferson

John Bunyan in 'Christian Behavior', said, 'The whole Bible was given for this very end, that you should both believe this doctrine and live in the comfort and sweetness of it.' How can we live in the sweetness and comfort of doctrines if we don't know what they are? We must learn them first, and then we can live in the joy of them. If we are only exposed to a dab of doctrine here and there, this is impossible. — Nancy Wilson

He that denies any of the doctrines that Christ has delivered, to be true, denies him to be sent from God, and consequently to be the Messiah; and so ceases to be a Christian. — John Locke

Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another. — Thomas Jefferson

Often people see doctrines as a checklist. Here are the following nineteen truths which you've got to believe to be a good sound Christian. — N. T. Wright

But for a younger generation of conservative operatives who would soon rise to power ... They were true believers who meant what they said, whether it was 'No New Taxes' or 'We are a Christian Nation.' In fact, with their rigid doctrines, slash-and-burn style, and exaggerated sense of having been aggrieved, this new conservative leadership was eerily reminiscent of some of the New Left's leaders during the sixties. As with their left-wing counterparts, this new vanguard of the right viewed politics as a contest not just between competing policy visions, but between good and evil. Activists in both parties began developing litmus tests, checklists of orthodoxy, leaving a Democrat who questioned abortion increasingly lonely, any Republican who championed gun control effectively marooned. In this Manichean struggle, compromise came to look like weakness, to be punished or purged. You were with us or you were against us. You had to choose sides. — Barack Obama

As we grow in the Christian life we face increasing danger of spiritual pride. We know the correct doctrines, the right methods, and the proper do's and don'ts. But we may not see the poverty of our own spiritual character. We may not see our critical and unforgiving spirit, our habit of backbiting, or our tendency to judge others. We may become like the Laodiceans of whom our Lord said, 'You say, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing." But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked' (Revelation 3:17). — Jerry Bridges

You can describe Christianity and you can also describe liberalism. Christianity has certain beliefs, tenets, doctrines. Not all Christians are always living up to them. Similarly, not all liberals are living up to the tenets of liberalism. — Ann Coulter

Even a child could see the division between what the Galileans [i.e., Christians] say they believe and what, in fact, they do believe, as demonstrated by their actions. A religion of brotherhood and mildness which daily murders those who disagree with its doctrines can only be thought hypocrite, or worse. — Gore Vidal

A church determined to hold only those doctrines that a secular world finds adequately comprehensible is a church that will hold to no central vital Christian teaching whatsoever. — Albert Mohler

In telling these stories of our Nation's past, however, let's not be so zealous in correcting liberal historians that we create our own historical revisionism. If the Founding Fathers were alive today, some of them would not want to go to the typical Evangelical church. Some were influenced by the pagan Enlightenment, as well as the Protestant Reformation. one historical figure (not a Founding Father) who's been misrepresented in our quest to find Christian heroes is Johnny Appleseed. He's routinely pictured as a nice man who went around scattering apple seeds everywhere and toting a Bible under his arm. The fact is, Johnny Appleseed was a missionary for Swedenbogrism, a spiritist cult. This cult taught many false doctrines and claimed that the writings of the Apostle Paul had no place in the Bible. When a child hears that Johnny Appleseed is a 'godly hero' and then discovers that he was in fact a cult member, what will he logically conclude about everything he's been taught? — Gregg Harris

One area of the Book of Mormon that does bother some is what they see as anachronistic doctrine; that the Book of Mormon has Christian doctrine prior to the coming of Christ; that it has seemingly New Testament doctrines appearing centuries before Jesus arrives, and it seems to be representing a form of Christianity existing in the New World where there doesn't seem to be much evidence of that archaeologically. Christianity is invisible in the New World prior to the coming of Columbus, and so those things seem like clear anachronisms to people looking at it in that way. — Daniel C. Peterson

Although it has been fashionable to deny it, anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the decline of Rome and were accompanied by the eventual disappearance of slavery in all but the fringes of Christian Europe. When Europeans subsequently instituted slavery in the New World, they did so over strenuous papal opposition, a fact that was conveniently 'lost' from history until recently. Finally, the abolition of New World slavery was initiated and achieved by Christian activists. — Rodney Stark

Whosoever you are who introduce new doctrines, I beseech you to spare the ears of Romans! Spare that faith which was commended by the voice of an Apostle. Why should you attempt to teach us, at the end of hundreds of years, that which we never heard before? Why bring forward what Peter and Paul did not will to make known? Until this day, the world was Christian without your doctrine. Thus, I hold as an old man onto that faith wherein I was regenerated as a boy. — St. Jerome

Christian people should surely have been in the vanguard of the movement for environmental responsibility, because of our doctrines of creation and stewardship. Did God make the world? Does he sustain it? Has he committed its resources to our care? His personal concern for his own creation should be sufficient to inspire us to be equally concerned. — John Stott

I am a real Christian, that is to say, a cisciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator. — Thomas Jefferson

Are the Scriptures clear (perspicuous)? That is, can a literate, faithful Christian read the Bible and understand what God is saying? The answer depends upon how high or low we set the bar for "understanding" and how much or how little we allow for differences in that understanding. For example, setting the bar low, all Christians would agree that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ came for our salvation by dying on the Cross. Further, the belief that Jesus was both truly God and truly man is a teaching that most Christians throughout history have held, though both of those doctrines were challenged in significant ways in early Christian history. But once we go a bit more in-depth and get into such questions as how Jesus saves a person and what, exactly, one needs to do in order to be saved by Christ, we run into all manner of differences among Christian traditions. — Devin Rose

If you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. — C.S. Lewis

Secularism in the Christian world was an attempt to resolve the long and destructive struggle of church and state. Separation, adopted in the American and French Revolutions and elsewhere after that, was designed to prevent two things: the use of religion by the state to reinforce and extend its authority; and the use of the state power by the clergy to impose their doctrines and rules on others. This is a problem long seen as purely Christian, not relevant to Muslims or for that matter to Jews, for whom a similar problem has arisen in Israel. Looking at the contemporary Middle East, both Muslim and Jewish, one must ask whether this is still true
or whether Muslims and Jews may perhaps have caught a Christian disease and might therefore consider a Christian remedy. — Bernard Lewis

When a person does not know the doctrines of the Christian faith, he can easily be captured by false religions. — Warren W. Wiersbe

The heart of the difference between cheap-grace doctrines of guilt-free existence and the Christian gospel is this: Modern chauvinism desperately avoids the message of guilt by treating it as a regrettable symptom. Christianity listens to the message of guilt by conscientious self-examination. Hedonism winks at sin. Christianity earnestly confesses sin. Secularism assumes it can extricate itself from gross misdeeds. Christianity looks to grace for divine forgiveness. Modern consciousness is its own fumbling attorney before the bar of conscience. Christianity rejoices that God himself has become our attorney. Modernity sees no reason to atone for or make reparation for wrongs. Christianity knows that unatoned sin brings on misery of conscience. Modern naturalism sees no meed for God. Christianity celebrates God's willingness to suffer four our sins and redeem us from guilt. — Thomas C. Oden

Goodwill. If anyone maintain that men ought to be compelled by fire and sword to profess certain doctrines, and conform to this or that exterior worship, without any regard had unto their morals; if anyone endeavour to convert those that are erroneous unto the faith, by forcing them to profess things that they do not believe and allowing them to practise things that the Gospel does not permit, it cannot be doubted indeed but such a one is desirous to have a numerous assembly joined in the same profession with himself; but that he principally intends by those means to compose a truly Christian Church is altogether incredible. — John Locke

Lord, send Your life throughout the entire church. Visit Your church; restore sound doctrine and holy, earnest living. Take away from professing Christians their love of frivolities, their attempts to meet the world on it's own ground, and give back the old love of the doctrines of the Cross and Christ. May free grace and dying love again be the music that refreshes the church and makes her heart exceeding glad. — Charles Spurgeon

All religions worthy of the name are now making great efforts to purify their doctrines and return to their original standpoint, - all except Christianity! You surely know that the nineteenth century Christianity is not the religion taught by Christ. Christ's religion has been changed and corrupted. But Christian clergymen are well aware that if they were to attempt to purify Christianity and bring it back to the religion of Christ, the result would be to reform it out of existence. Christianity stands to-day completely explained. Every step in its development is laid bare and shown to be due to purely natural causes, and it is easy to see how much Christianity adopted from other and older religions. — Virchand Gandhi

Literature enlarges our world of experience to include both more of the physical world and things not yet imagined, giving the "actual world" a "new dimension of depth" (Lewis, Of Other Worlds 29). This makes it possible for literature to strip Christian doctrines of their "stained glass" associations and make them appear in their "real potency" (37), a possibility Lewis himself realized in the Narnia series and the space trilogy. — Leland Ryken

Humility and love are precisely the graces which the men of the world can understand, if they do not comprehend doctrines. They are the graces about which there is no mystery, and they are within reach of all classes ... The poorest Christian can every day find occasion for practicing love and humility. — J.C. Ryle

It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practise is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ. — Lucretia Mott

Would a just God sentence a morally good individual to hell for never having heard of him? And for that matter, would a just God expel a morally good individual to hell who has heard of Jesus, but simply finds no evidentiary reason to believe? According to any reasonable interpretation of Christianity's key doctrines, the answer is a simple and firm 'Yes.' This is because, according to Christian dogma, it is impossible to be 'moral' without Jesus Christ; I disagree with this on a fundamental level. — David G. McAfee

But there is a more catholic understanding of the term apostolic: it means missional. The apostles were those called together to learn (as disciples) so they could be sent out on a mission (which is what both the Greek root for apostle and the Latin root for mission mean). From this vantage point, disciples are apostles-in-training; Christian discipleship (or spiritual formation ) is training for apostleship, training for mission. From this understanding we place less emphasis on whose lineage, rites, doctrines, structures, and terminology are right and more emphasis on whose actions, service, outreach, kindness, and effectiveness are good. — Brian D. McLaren