Church The Quotes & Sayings

If the Church is a body, and the body is a business, isn't that the same thing as prostitution? — Ann Voskamp

Those who observe suffering are tempted to reject God; those who experience it often cannot give up on God, their solace and their agony." The presence of so many in church on a wintry night proved his point. "You can protest against the evil in the world only if you believe in a good God," Volf also said. "Otherwise the protest doesn't make sense. — Philip Yancey

Your Christ, the Church's Christ, is a god made in the image of effete men who've never had a good fuck in their lives, or if they have, who've thrashed themselves with whips to relieve their guilt. They hate their own cocks so much they'd light votive candles to make them fall off, if it would do the trick. — Michael Schiefelbein

The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind. — Heinrich Heine

It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp? — William Sloane Coffin

The church is in the hope business. We, of all people, ought to be known most for our hope because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking. — John Ortberg

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

Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that's the angels' pasture; they are happy; they don't have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church. — Jacques Roumain

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we're making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus. Are we determined to have nothing to do with all these people? They are convinced that it is not the Word Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I served as a missionary for my church. I served as a pastor in my congregation for about 10 years. I've sat across the table from people who were out of work and worked with them to try and find new work or to help them through tough times. — Mitt Romney

Faithfully and strenuously you should resist the heretics in defense of the only true and life-giving faith, which the Church has received - the apostles and imparted to her sons. For the Lord of all gave to His apostles the power of the Gospel, through whom also we have known the truth, that is, the doctrine of the Son of God: to whom also did the Lord declare: 'He who hears you, hears Me; and he who despises you, despises Me, and Him who sent Me' (Lk. 10:16). — Pope Clement I

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

I like this interstate as much as the next guy, but the farther south we go, the hotter it gets, and I'm already sweating like a whore in church. — John Green

The true church is not made of creeds and forms, nor is it contained in walls of wood and stone; the heart of man is its temple and the Spirit of truth is the one guide into all Truth. When men learn to turn within to the Spirit of truth, who is in each one for his light and inspiration, the differences between the churches of man will be eliminated, and the one church will be recognized. — Charles Fillmore

The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom the eldest son of the serf was held as the son of the Lord ... Marquette was claimed by the Lord's Spiritual, as well as by the Lord's Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim. — Matilda Joslyn Gage

Some go to church to take a walk; some go there to laugh and talk. Some go there to meet a friend; some go there their time to spend. Some go there to meet a lover; some go there a fault to cover. Some go there for speculation; some go there for observation. Some go there to doze and nod; the wise go there to worship God. — Charles Spurgeon

Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensible structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown.
Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need. That is why, for many people, a job is crucial psychologically, over and above the paycheck. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be organized. The absolute demands imposed on a parent by an infant, the responsibility to care for an invalid, the tight discipline demanded by membership in a church or, in some countries, a political party - all these may also impose a simple structure on life. — Alvin Toffler

The Theology of The Holy Trinity has been well established for 1700 years. In my opinion, it is hyper-evident by the New Testament manuscripts in conjunction with the writings and ensuing Theologies of The Early & Later Church fathers that The Father,The Son, and The Holy Spirit are Objectively Real and True".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] — R. Alan Woods

Newt had said I loved Ivy more than the church. I wasn't going to deny it, but there were all kinds of love, and how shallow would I be if my anchor to reality was a hunk of real estate? It was the people who were there that made it mean something. — Kim Harrison

You only have to glance at the daily news to see how passions are stirred by claims of exclusive loyalty to one's own kin, one's own clan, one's own country, and one's own church. These ties that bind are vital to our communities and our lives, but they can also be twisted into a noose. — Bill Moyers

The issue of homosexuality in the church is complex, highly charged, and defined by misrecognized fears related to rapid social change and the perceived threat to familiar social institutions and the sense of security they represent. Underlying this conflict are the church's historic discomfort with issues of sexuality, and dualistic constructions that codify that unease into categories of sexual insiders (monogamous heterosexuals and celibates) and outsiders (everybody else). These have been magnified in recent years by cultural differences between different generations and African countries where the church has grown. — Jane Ellen Nickell

I understand that what I am to do is to be a bridge between the people who would never set foot in a church in their entire lives and people who would like to get them there. So I write books that Christians can give to their non-Christian friends that they will actually read. — Andy Andrews

I grew up in the church. I was raised in the church. — Quinton Aaron

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

You were not called to be a mere church-goer or seat-warmer in the Church of Christ — Sunday Adelaja

The cover was pebbled black leather, the pages onionskin, and he opened it carefully. It was his first Bible, the one his mother had given him, the one that had taken its time showing him what he was supposed to do with his life, his size, that voice of his. It was the one used for his ordination, and when he had buried his mother on a autumn hillside in Tennesee five years ago. King James. He didn't care about the scholars or the accuracy or the bringing of his church into whatever century they claimed it was these days; he cared about the poetry, and about the comfort it brought to those who needed to hear it. — Charles L. Grant

One of the beauties of working in radio is the way a whole setting can be richly evoked simply by the addition to the track of a little birdsong and a church bell in the distance. — Peter Blegvad

False religion may prevail, iniquity may abound, the love of many may wax cold, the cross of Calvary may be lost sight of, and darkness, like the pall of death, may spread over the world; the whole force of the popular current may be formed to overthrow the people of God; but in the hour of greatest peril the God of Elijah will raise up human instrumentalities to bear a message that will not be silenced. — Ellen G. White

It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church going, hollow-hearted prosperity.5 — Francis Chan

Only she began to be afraid of the ghastly white tombstones, that peculiar loathsome whiteness of Carrara marble, detestable as false teeth, which stuck up on the hillside, under Tevershall church, and which she saw with such grim painfulness from the park. — D.H. Lawrence

And we find from Church history that the primitive Christians thus understood it; for that women did actually speak and preach amongst them we have indisputable proof. — Catherine Booth

The strength of the church is not the strength of its institutions but the authenticity of its witness. — Leonard Sweet

Liberal Catholics are the worst enemies of the Church. — Pope Pius IX

In formal education, children are introduced to new ideas about God and must reconcile their image of God with what the teacher tells them about God. As we teach children, at home and in the church, we do not give them our understanding of God; rather, we guide them as they reshape their God in the light of what they learn from us and in their ever expanding life experiences.[19] — Catherine Stonehouse

The promise to the Church is a promise of persecution, if faithful in this world, but a promise of a great inheritance and reward hereafter. — C.I. Scofield

Poverty is not primarily about money. It is about having no idea what to do and/or having no one with whom to do it. The former I called imagination and the latter I called community. To the extent that our neighborhood had imagination and community, we were not poor. But without imagination and community, no money could help us. . . . The role of the local church is to be a community of imagination [for the kingdom].12 — David E. Fitch

There are Indian grandmas who get too much church and Indian grandmas where the church doesn't take, and who are let loose in their old age to shock the young. Zack had one of those last sort. — Louise Erdrich

As she left the church, shaking her head, she heard Cole saying Kyle's name again and again. It was like he'd just discovered fire, and Kyle was the main ingredient. — Debra Anastasia

Susan Boggs, a black runaway interviewed in Canada in 1863, said of the religious slave masters: 'Why the man that baptized me had a colored woman tied up in his yard to whip when he got home that very Sunday and her mother ... was in church hearing him preach. He preached, You must obey your masters and be good servants.- That is the greater part of the sermon, when they preach to the colored folks ... ' — Gerry Spence

It argued a special genius; he was clearly a case of that. The spark of fire, the point of light, sat somewhere in his inward vagueness as a lamp before a shrine twinkles in the dark perspective of a church; and while youth and early middle-age, while the stiff American breeze of example and opportunity were blowing upon it hard, had made the chamber of his brain a strange workshop of fortune. This establishment, mysterious and almost anonymous, the windows of which, at hours of highest pressure, never seemed, for starers and wonderers, perceptibly to glow, must in fact have been during certain years the scene of an unprecedented, a miraculous white-heat, the receipt for producing which it was practically felt that the master of the forge could not have communicated even with the best intentions. — Henry James

People have really strong images of what church is, and it's almost certainly not the same as mine. — Sally Phillips

Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression. — Ralph Ellison

Your calling is not an afterthought. God does not save you and then say, "Now what am I going to get him to do? What job can I give her in the church?" God saves you because He has a purpose for you. — Derek Prince

The door of the visible church is incomparably wider than the door of heaven (522)[.] — Richard Baxter

As a Fundamentalist I had discovered while I was in college that it is possible to dismiss the entire Church as having gone off the rails by about AD 95. That is, we, with our open Bibles, knew better than did old Ignatius or Clement, who had been taught by the very apostles themselves, just what the Church is and what it should look like. — Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke Of Norfolk

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

Every church has a marketing plan! The only difference is that some are better than others! When I think of marketing I think of building a relationship with those within reach of your ministry who know nothing about your church or are disconnected from your people. — Gary Rohrmayer

Non-churchgoer s tend to see Christians as takers rather than givers. When Christians sacrifice and give wildly to the poor, that is truly a light that glimmers. The Bible teaches that the church is to be that light, that sign of hope, in an increasingly dark and hopeless world. — Francis Chan

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. — Pope Leo XIII

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

They're definitely going to declare war tomorrow. In the morning. It's probably timed so that the nation can get down on its collective knees in church and pray for deliverance.' 'Oh, yes, war is always so Christian, isn't it? — Kate Atkinson

If your church continues in this liberty of conscience, making no scruple to take away what she pleases, soon the Scripture will fail you, and you will have to be satisfied with the Institutes of Calvin, which must indeed have I know not what excellence, since they censure the Scriptures themselves! — Francis De Sales

Suddenly I realized she was asleep. Exhausted by her flight she had fallen asleep against my shoulder as so many times, in taxis, in buses, on a park-seat. I sat still and let her be. There was nothing to disturb her in the dark church. The candles napped around the virgin, and there was nobody else there. The slowly growing pain in my upper arm where her weight lay was the greatest pleasure I had ever known. — Graham Greene

Knox's daily devotional routine was built around the Psalms, and throughout his life he followed the liturgical practice, acquired as a child in Haddington's church, of moving through the entire psalter every month. — Jane Dawson

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Reminded of favorite poem by Wendy Cope which goes:
At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle.
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle.
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle,
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful if you're single. — Helen Fielding

The forefathers of the United States were children of religious bigotry and persecution, and, as a result, fled Britain to create a new approach to life and government. They valued intellect and education. In fact, they outlined the principles of the United States' democracy to establish intellectual freedom from the Church. — Mike Medavoy

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

The Catholic Church sees voluntary vampirism as a kind of suicide. I tend to agree. Though the Pope also excommunicated all animators, unless we ceased raising the dead. Fine; I became Episcopalian. — Laurell K. Hamilton

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 central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually corporately, tending to do the Lord's work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them. — Francis A. Schaeffer

Charity felt rather snoozy after the long sermon, and she was really very grateful when Reverend Meeps offered her a cup of tea. Church was not so bad when the minister remembered you were only human. — Elizabeth Jane Howard

The church is not going to survive if they are going to tell people that they have to twist their minds into 1st century pretzels. — John Shelby Spong

I say to Israel, the Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the program. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty. — Wilford Woodruff

As women are taking an active part in pressing on the consideration of Congress many narrow sectarian measures, such as more rigid Sunday laws, the stopping of travel, the distribution of the mail on that day, and the introduction of the name of God into the Constitution; and as this action on the part of some women is used as an argument for the disfranchisement of all, I hope this convention will declare that the Woman Suffrage Association is opposed to all union of Church and State, and pledges itself as far as possible to maintain the secular nature of our Government. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

My family for several generations have been members of the Unitarian Church. — Leverett Saltonstall

The church has been planted as a paradise in this world. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

Reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of all things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is really the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God Himself is bound by reason. — G.K. Chesterton

The Church, if it is to be the Church, must be the revelation of that divine Love which God "poured out into our hearts." Without this love nothing is "valid" in the Church because nothing is possible. The content of Christ's Eucharist is Love, and only through love can we enter into it and be made its partakers. — Alexander Schmemann

When there is a spirit of controversy in the church or in the land, a revival is needful. The spirit of religion is not the spirit of controversy. There can be no prosperity in religion, where the spirit of controversy prevails. — Charles Grandison Finney

The Forgotten Man ... delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school ... but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide. Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays-but his chief business in life is to pay ... Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all? — William Graham Sumner

The liturgy of the Eucharist is best understood as a journey or procession. It is the journey of the Church into the dimension of the Kingdom. We use the word 'dimension' because it seems the best way to indicate the manner of our sacramental entrance into the risen life of Christ. Color transparencies 'come alive' when viewed in three dimensions instead of two. The presence of the added dimension allows us to see much better the actual reality of what has been photographed. In very much the same way, though of course any analogy is condemned to fail, our entrance into the presence of Christ is an entrance into a fourth dimension which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life. It is not an escape from the world, rather it is the arrival at a vantage point from which we can see more deeply into the reality of the world. — Alexander Schmemann

Despite its reputation, Appalachia - especially northern Alabama and Georgia to southern Ohio - has far lower church attendance than the Midwest, parts of the Mountain West, and much of the space between Michigan and Montana. Oddly enough, we think we attend church more than we actually do. In a recent Gallup poll, Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country. Yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South. — J.D. Vance

promised land and our promised blessings. . . . — The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

In the politics of Jesus the world will be changed by non-coercive love or not at all. It's not the task of the church to change the world by legislative force. It's the task of the church to be the world changed by Christ. This is revolutionary in a way that conventional politics never can be. — Brian Zahnd

It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church, and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government. — Roy Moore

Oh, man," Xavier groaned. "See what you've done
now I'm stressing."
"You can't! You're the stable one!"
Xavier laughed and I realized his distress had been feigned to illustrate a point. He wasn't worried in the slightest.
"Just relax. Go and run a bath or have a shot of brandy."
"Okay."
"That second bit was a joke. We both know you can't hold your liquor. — Alexandra Adornetto

On Sunday morning Mrs. Whitaker went to church. Her local church was St. James the Less, which was a little more "Don't think of this as a church, think of it as a place where like-minded friends hang out and are joyful" than Mrs. Whitaker felt entirely comfortable with, but she liked the vicar, the Reverend Bartholomew, when he wasn't actually playing the guitar. — Neil Gaiman

When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and, in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against the Jews and against the heretics. — William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Nothing in the church makes people in the church more angry than grace. It's ironic: we stumble into a party we weren't invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get in. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus' irresponsible love, we decide to make grace "more responsible" by becoming self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out (which, as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include). — Mike Yaconelli

News came of Beni Beni, the madman of Wimbe, who'd always made us laugh in better times. He'd run up to merchants in the trading center with his raving eyes and snatch cakes and Fantas from their stalls. No one ever took them away because his hands were always so filthy. The mad people had always depended on others to care for them, but now there were none. Beni Beni died at the church. — William Kamkwamba

You're going to come across some truly gifted people in your lifetime that seem to know all the answers. However, they lost their personal relationship with God, along the way. Love them anyways, and do everything you can to help them restore that relationship. They are fighting a war that you don't know anything about. — Shannon L. Alder

It's nowhere near as intense as what I imagine an actor experiences backstage, but I feel a fluttering nervousness before a curtain goes up on a play. I mean, any play, anywhere - on Broadway or the Bowery or in a church basement. — Ben Brantley

Do not lower the standard or cater to the worldly laxness of the average Christian by making the way in easy. Make sure that everyone who joins fully understands his duties and obligations and is willing, in Christ's strength, to undertake them. — Isabella MacDonald Alden

Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow. — Flannery O'Connor

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church. — Pope Francis

These conversations went on and on with person after person. I stood literally amazed by the grace of God, not just upon one Christian passionate about sharing the gospel, but upon an entire community passionate about sharing the gospel. As I looked around, I observed a contagious culture of evangelism across the church. It is a culture of evangelism that is not ultimately dependent on events, projects, programs, and ministry professionals. Instead, it is a culture of evangelism that is built on people filled with the power of God's Spirit proclaiming the gospel of God's grace in the context of their everyday lives and relationships. — J. Mack Stiles

People no longer need to go to church to hear the Word, which has been the selling point for local churches for the past fifty years. Because of this, church is becoming less of a possessor of knowledge (commodity) and more a communal hub. — Justin Wise

Holy Mother Church teaches us to end the year and also our days with an examination of conscience ... to be grateful and to ask for forgiveness. — Pope Francis

One of the challenges of the church is to accept humanity for all it is. — Tom Shadyac

The last word of our Lord to the church was not the Great Commission. The last thing He said to the church was 'Repent.' He said that to five out of seven. — Vance Havner

So many people grew up in the church, and you can have an awesome upbringing, but I made a personal conviction; I made a personal decision when I was very young. I enjoy going to church without my parents. On Sunday mornings, I want to go. Bible studies on Wednesdays ... I have a relationship - not just through my parents. — AJ Michalka

"The Church of England," I said, seeing that Mr. Inglesant paused, "is no doubt a compromise." — Joseph Henry Shorthouse

In social life, in the family government, in the Church, and in the State this is an acknowledged and invariable law. The debtor would be incapable of appreciating the clemency which cancelled the debt, so long as he denied either the existence or the justice of the claim. Unconscious of the obligation, he would be insensible to the grace that remitted it. — Octavius Winslow

Allow me to sum it up this way; if the Church allows this secular humanistic "social gospel" into its hallowed halls, then it is putting its very existence at risk, for it will subject itself to the government. And the Church must be subject to Christ
not the government. — Curtis A. Chamberlain

A dull, dark, depressing day in Winter: the whole world looks like a Methodist church at Wednesday night prayer meeting. — H.L. Mencken

The teachings of the Church line up more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. — James Carville

The liturgy is the place where we wait for Jesus to show up. We don't have to do much. The liturgy is not an act of will. It is not a series of activities designed to attain a spiritual mental state. We do not have to apply will pressure. To be sure, like basketball or football, it is something that requires a lot of practice
its rhythms do not come naturally except to those who have been rehearsing them for years. On some Sundays the soul will indeed battle to even pay attention. In the normal course of worship, we do not have to conjure up feelings or a devotional mood; we are not required to perform the liturgy flawlessly. Such anxious effort ... blind us to what is really going on.
We do have to show up, and we cannot leave early. But if we will dwell there, remain in place, wait patiently, Jesus will show up. — Mark Galli

When I grew up in the church, we were praying because the Communists were going to come over and hang you upside down on a cross, and I so wanted to be a good person, and I had these rosary beads that I would sleep with every night, and I just wanted the blessed Virgin to be on my side. — Susan Sarandon