Evangelical Theology Quotes & Sayings

Among Evangelical Christians, all of whom await the Second Coming of Jesus, there are historically two camps: postmillennialists and premillennialists. For most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most were of the "post" variety, meaning that they expected the Messiah's return after the thousand-year reign of peace. In order to hasten His arrival, they set out to create that harmonious world here and now, fighting for the abolition of slavery, prohibition of alcohol, public education, and women's literacy.
The chaos of the Civil War and industrialization caused many evangelicals to rethink their optimism. They determined that Jesus would actually arrive before the final judgment. Therefore any efforts toward a just society here on earth were futile; what mattered was perfecting one's faith. As historian Randall Balmer writes, these believers "retreated into a theology of despair, one that essentially ceded the temporal world to Satan and his minions. — Mark Sundeen

It leaned forward, elbows on its knees, all amusement vanishing from its features, leaving its chiseled visage quietly regal, dignified. "I give you my word, Gabrielle O'Callaghan," it said softly. "I will protect you."
"Right. The word of the blackest fairy, the legendary liar, the great deceiver," she mocked. How dare it offer its word like it might actually mean something?
A muscle leapt in its jaw. "That is not all I have been, Gabrielle. I have been, and am, many things."
"Oh, of course, silly me, I left out consummate seducer and ravager of innocence. — Karen Marie Moning

While Dominion theology may sound like an outlier in modern Christianity, this relatively small group wields a surprising amount of influence with the conservative right in America. Elements of Dominionist doctrine have found their way into such mainstream evangelical events as the National Day of Prayer. — Thomas Horn

The disappearance of theology from the life of the Church, and the orchestration of that disappearance by some of its leaders, is hard to miss today, but oddly enough, not easy to prove. It is hard to miss in the evangelical world
in the vacuous worship that is so prevalent, for example, in the shift form God to the self as the central focus of faith, in the psychologized preaching that follows this shift, in the erosion of its conviction, in its strident pragmatism, in its inability to think incisively about the culture, in its reveling in the irrational. — David F. Wells

It is important to note that the Great Reversal preceded the rise of the welfare state in America. Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty did not occur until the 1960s, and even FDR's relatively modest New Deal policies were not launched until the 1930s. In short, the evangelical church's retreat from poverty alleviation was fundamentally due to shifts in theology and not - as many have asserted - to government programs that drove the church away from ministry to the poor. While the rise of government programs may have exacerbated the church's retreat, they were not the primary cause. Theology matters, and the church needs to rediscover a Christ-centered, fully orbed perspective of the kingdom. — Steve Corbett

If I do not fight bigotry wherever it is, bigotry is thereby strengthened. And to the degree that it is strengthened, it will, thereby, have the power to turn on me. — Bayard Rustin

Evangelical theology is modest theology, because it is determined to be so by its object, that is, by him who is its subject. — Karl Barth

When you're alone, it's easy to be afraid. — Patrick Rothfuss

I love the process of acting, and to turn your passion into a career is the biggest gift. — Ram Kapoor

It has been a great source of sadness to me to see two schools of thought within the evangelical church over many decades. Those who come glorying in manifestations of power sometimes seem dismissive of those whom they regard as "cold theologians." I once heard a man speaking at a large conference say that theology was the enemy of the church and if only we could abandon doctrinal perspectives, the church would be a happier place. What tragic nonsense! We also see and hear those who love theological insight and savour the doctrines of Scripture expressing equally dismissive remarks about Christians who are enjoying God's power, as though they were mere children preoccupied with experience. How I long for a recovery of true biblical Christianity where the apostle Paul, who wrote the book of Romans, also raised the dead! It seems that profound theology and great signs and wonders happily cohabited in Paul's life and ministry. — Terry Virgo

Ringing in the ears of evangelical theology is Martin Luther's call to distinguish between law and gospel.74 His distinction was not between the Old Testament (law) and the New Testament (gospel). Rather, law is anything in Scripture that expresses God's demands while emphasizing the inability of sinful human beings to live up to those standards (e.g., Jesus's command to be perfect as God himself is perfect; Matt. 5:48). Oppositely, gospel is anything in Scripture that expresses God's promises by emphasizing that Jesus has met all of his demands. Gospel, then, brings grace to rescue sinners awakened to their need by law. Evangelical theology, following Luther's trajectory, would profoundly disagree with Catholic theology's view of the New Law — Gregg R. Allison

Our passion is to imitate the ministry of Jesus in the power of the Spirit. This requires we must follow Jesus out of baptismal waters, through our personal deserts, and into the harvest. We want to take the ammunition of the balanced evangelical theology with the fire power of Pentecostal practice, loading & readying the best of both worlds to hit the target of making & nurturing disciples ... — John Wimber

Evangelical Christians need to notice ... , that the Reformation said 'Scripture Alone' and not 'the Revelation of God in Christ Alone'. If you do not have the view of the Scriptures that the Reformers had, you really have no content in the word 'Christ' - and this is the modern drift in theology. Modern theology uses the word without content because 'Christ' is cut away from the Scriptures. The Reformation followed the teaching of Christ Himself in linking the revelation Christ gave of God to the revelation of the written Scriptures. — Francis A. Schaeffer

when thinking becomes involved with faith, it will also understand that God cannot be thought without faith. That is the initial point from which evangelical theology proceeds. — Eberhard Jungel

God transcends even the undertakings of evangelical theologians. — Karl Barth

Evangelicalism can only remain evangelical if it is passionately serious about truth and theology. — Os Guinness

I wondered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly. — Joseph Conrad

If you're dealing with a character that actually exists, there's an awful lot of information there. So, you can put together, from the information, motivations, insecurities, reactions. Where does that seed get born, if you like? What I do is put that together. — Michael Fassbender

Labels such as, 'evangelical', 'fundamental', 'charismatic', 'liberal' contribute to polarization and produce a climate of implied or outspoken distrust. Respectful dialogue becomes virtually impossible. What we desperately need to offset this disunity and distrust is a new and cleansing theology of communication. — Robert H. Schuller

A man should keep on being constructive, and do constructive things. He should take part in the things that go on in this wonderful world. He should be someone to be reckoned with. He should live life and make every day count, to the very end. Sometimes it's tough. But that's what I'm going to do. — J. Willard Marriott

Having been the discoverer of many splendid things, he is said to have asked his friends and relations that, after his death, they should place on his tomb a cylinder enclosing a sphere, writing on it the proportion of the containing solid to that which is contained. — Archimedes

If I have so far argued that Foucault is a kind of closet liberal and thus deeply modern, I need to be equally critical of evangelical (and especially American) Christianity's modernity and its appropriation of Enlightenment notions of the autonomous self. Indeed, many otherwise orthodox Christians, who recoil at the notion of theological liberalism, have unwittingly adopted notions of freedom and autonomy that are liberal to the core. Averse to hierarchies and control, contemporary evangelicalism thrives on autonomy: the autonomy of the nondenominational church, at a macrocosmic level, and the autonomy of the individual Christian, at the microcosmic level. And it does not seem to me that the emerging church has changed much on this score; indeed, some elements of emergent spirituality are intensifications of this affirmation of autonomy and a laissez-faire attitude with respect to institutions. — James K.A. Smith

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble. — Andrew Murray

The results of that charismatic takeover have been devastating. In recent history, no other movement has done more to damage the cause of the gospel, to distort the truth, and to smother the articulation of sound doctrine. Charismatic theology has turned the evangelical church into a cesspool of error and a breeding ground for false teachers. It has warped genuine worship through unbridled emotionalism, polluted prayer with private gibberish, contaminated true spirituality with unbiblical mysticism, and corrupted faith by turning it into a creative force for speaking worldly desires into existence. By elevating the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, the Charismatic Movement has destroyed the church's immune system - uncritically granting free access to every imaginable form of heretical teaching and practice. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

unity. Evangelicals, by definition, don't care about "unity" nearly as much as they care about truth. When you say "We may differ on some issues of morality and theology, but the important thing is that we stay together in one united Church" you pre-suppose that the liberals are right and the evangelicals are wrong. Which, when you think about it, isn't very liberal at all. — Andrew Rilstone

In the decade of the 1980s, a massive and comprehensive study of religion in American life was undertaken by the Gallup organization. The results of the study were as terrifying as they were revealing. Americans, even evangelical Americans, are woefully ignorant of the content of Scripture and even more ignorant of the history of Christianity and classical Christian theology. — R.C. Sproul

I sometimes think my earnestness is confused for stupidity, but it shouldn't be. — Jenny Slate

The friends of evangelical doctrine, and the advocates of orthodoxy, have the following objects to keep ever in view in this age; they must take care of their Bibles, that they be not mutilated or curtailed by lawless criticism; they must take care of their theology, that it be not perverted by false philosophy; and they must take care of their pulpits, that they be not occupied by heretical, unspiritual, or incompetent ministers. — John Angell James

These were quirks, and at first I understood them as little more than strict rules that I could either comply with or get around. Yet I was a curious kid, and the deeper I immersed myself in evangelical theology, the more I felt compelled to mistrust many sectors of society. — J.D. Vance

A counselor, David Seamands, summed up his career this way: Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. ... We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions. — Philip Yancey

Or take the belief common among some evangelicals that every individual needs an identifiable point of personal faith conversion to create a "personal relationship with Jesus." That's certainly a key to evangelical revivalism, and one can definitely find various Bible verses that seem to buttress such a claim. But, altogether, the direct biblical evidence for that theology and rhetoric is in fact pretty thin. — Christian Smith