The Church Quotes

“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“I would like to encourage you to stop thinking of what you're doing as ministry. Start realizing that your ministry is how much of a tip you leave when you eat in a restaurant; when you leave a hotel room whether you leave it all messed up or not; whether you flush your own toilet or not. Your ministry is the way that you love people. And you love people when you write something that is encouraging to them, something challenging. You love people when you call your wife and say, 'I'm going to be late for dinner,' instead of letting her burn the meal. You love people when maybe you cook a meal for your wife sometime, because you know she's really tired. Loving people - being respectful toward them - is much more important than writing or doing music.”
― Rich Mullins

“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”
― Tony Campolo

“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God. In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It was the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“In the moral realm, there is very little consensus left in Western countries over the proper basis of moral behavior. And because of the power of the media, for millions of men and women the only venue where moral questions are discussed and weighed is the talk show, where more often than not the primary aim is to entertain, even shock, not to think. When Geraldo and Oprah become the arbiters of public morality, when the opinion of the latest media personality is sought on everything from abortion to transvestites, when banality is mistaken for profundity because [it's] uttered by a movie star or a basketball player, it is not surprising that there is less thought than hype. Oprah shapes more of the nation's grasp of right and wrong than most of the pulpits in the land. Personal and social ethics have been removed from the realms of truth and structures of thoughts; they have not only been relativized, but they have been democratized and trivialized.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism

“Jesus said the weeds would grow with the wheat until the Judgement," Dietrich answered, "so one finds both good men and bad in the Church. By our fruits we will be known, not by what name we have called ourselves. I have come to believe that there is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds.”
― Michael Flynn, Eifelheim

“After an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture — I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:

Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, any of these my promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents.”
― Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican

“If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves once again not to the worship of Christ, but to the imitation of Jesus. His invitation was not to believe, but to follow. (p. 145)”
― Robin R. Meyers, Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus

“The Church is composed of people, and people do terrible things and commit sin - it's what the Church has been telling us for two thousand years and continues to tell us, which is why the Church is here and essentially one of the major reasons why people hate it so much.”
― Michael Coren, Why Catholics are Right

“Of course it's dangerous. But it's a lot more dangerous for all of us if we don't do it. Even in a conquering army there are casualties. Safety is not the issue when we look at the Great Commission. The purpose of the church cannot be to survive, or even to thrive, but to serve.”
― Brother Andrew, Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ

“The saints are little pieces of mystical Christ, sick of love for union. The wife of youth, that wants her husband some years, and expects he shall return to her from oversea lands, is often on the shore; every ship coming near shore is her new joy; her heart loves the wind that shall bring him home. She asks at every passenger news: "Oh! saw ye my husband? What is he doing? When shall he come? Is he shipped for a return?" Every ship that carrieth not her husband, is the breaking of her heart. What desires hath the Spirit and Bride to hear, when the husband Christ shall say to the mighty angels, "Make you ready for the journey; let us go down and divide the skies, and bow the heaven: I will gather my prisoners of hope unto me; I can want my Rachel and her weeping children no longer. Behold, I come quickly to judge the nations." The bride, the Lamb's wife, blesseth the feet of the messengers that preach such tidings, "Rejoice, O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments; thy King is coming." Yea, she loveth that quarter of the sky, that being rent asunder and cloven, shall yield to her Husband, when he shall put through his glorious hand, and shall come riding on the rainbow and clouds to receive her to himself.”
― Samuel Rutherford, The Trial and Triumph of Faith

“Lo, thou, my Love, art fair;
Myself have made thee so;
Yea, thou art fair indeed,
Wherefore thou shalt not need
In beauty to despair;
For I accept thee so,
For fair.

[excerpt from "Christ to His Spouse"]”
― William Baldwin

“The Church is Christ’s witness to the world of a loving savior and His redemptive plan for man.”
― John Paul Warren

“...the church lives in a regime of ecclesial authoritarian security and the military elites live in a regime of national authoritarian security. These structures produce the same kind of authoritarian people, with a super defensive stance in their strategies and argumentation.
This is why they understand each other! (Leonardo Boff, p. 178)”
― Mev Puleo, The Struggle Is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation

“Indeed, the whole of Christology is undermined if outsiders are unable to look at the life of the church and see in its nonviolence the fulfillment of Isaiah’s oracle, for if we are unable to point to a peaceable Christian church to substantiate our claims, how can we credibly say that Messiah has come, if wars and violence continue even in our own midst? Our claims about Jesus ring hollow and empty to skeptical ears if we do not embody the peace and nonviolence which Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would bring.”
― Rob Arner, Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity

“The Bible is not a free-floating book of ageless wisdom, an interesting historical document, or a weapon that can be put in the service of any political goal. The Bible is a gift from God to the church, given for a particular purpose: to shape that community into the kind of people who can fulfill their commission to make disciples of all nations and steward God’s good creation, anticipating its final redemption.”
― Kaitlyn Schiess, The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here

“The phenomenon of Western secularism is unique in history but its leading cause is its revulsion against corrupt and oppressive state churches in Europe. Secularism stands as a parasite on the best of Christian beliefs and a protest against the worst of Christian behavior.”
― Os Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai's Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom

“Love has disappeared from the world. Society is deep down against love. Society has created substitutes for love for for example marriage. These are substitutes for love,
so that you do not begin to search for real love, which is not ordinarily available unless you raise your level of consciousness. Love is not an exclusive relationship, Love is the ultimate flowering of our consciousness.
God has also disappeared from the world, because love has disappeared from the world. One cannot connect with God through the head or through beliefs. You can only connect
with God through the heart.
The society pretends to be religious, but it is only a facade. The religion that exists is just a formality, a belief. Real religion is something else, but the moment you re really religious the society will be against you, because it is
a danger to society, to the politicians,  to the church and to the vested interests, who are oppressing and exploiting people.
We have to change the milieu that exists on earth today. We have to create a milieu of love in the world. Love unconditionally, love for the sheer joy of loving, not for receiving  anything back. Love and you will see that
a door has opened and God has entered into your life.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten

“We need not doubt that the Evangelical movement had a powerful effect in waking up eighteenth-century England from its religious apathy, or that eighteenth-century England needed it. Where it failed was in its long-term effects. Religion became identified in the popular mind with a series of moods, in which the worshipper, disposed thereto by all the arts of the revivalist, relished the flavours of spiritual peace. You needed neither a theology nor a liturgy; you did not take the strain of intellectual inquiry, nor associate yourself whole-heartedly with any historic tradition of worship. You floated, safely enough, on the little raft of your own faith, eagerly throwing out the lifeline to such drowning neighbours as were ready to catch it; meanwhile the ship was foundering.

It is this by-passing of an historic tradition in favour of a personal experience that has created the modem religious situation in England, and to some extent in the English-speaking world. The Oxford Movement did but lock the door on a stolen horse. On the one hand, it is assumed that every man's religion is his own affair; it does not concern, need not alarm his neighbours. On the other hand, the Christian witness has become a sectional affair; Christianity is one of the fads which people adopt if they are interested in that kind of thing. A poster in a railway station, bidding you be prepared to meet your God, is passed by with an indulgent smile. If people are burdened with a sense of sin, by all means let them seek comfort in some conventicle which promises them release from it; the same is perhaps true of people who begin to feel lonely in old age. But always religion is thought of, instinctively, as a way of changing from one state of mind into another.”
― Ronald Knox

“If the world grows too worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows too worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldliness by the world.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

“The evil is always both within and without the Church; but in a wilder form outside and a milder form inside”
― G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

“The early church prayed. Every revival church has prayed. Every participant in revival prayer has known travail. Though there are some tearful intercessors behind the scenes, I grant you that to or modern Christianity, praying is foreign.”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival Praying: An Urgent and Powerful Message for the Family of Christ

“We who follow Jesus cannot simply use the label Biblical to justify our desire to punish, exclude, or control others. As important as it is, the Bible is not our Lord and Savior—Jesus is. The standard by which we measure our actions is not 'Is it Biblical?' but 'Is it Christlike?”
― Marc Alan Schelske, Walking Otherward: Forty Meditations on Following Jesus’ Path of Other-centered, Co-suffering Love

“If Jesus is a revelation of the Father’s nature, then we know something new about God that humanity didn’t always know. God is not into coercion. God draws. God persuades. God invites. Those walking the other-centered, co-suffering way of Jesus are invited to this same commitment.”
― Marc Alan Schelske, Walking Otherward: Forty Meditations on Following Jesus’ Path of Other-centered, Co-suffering Love

“On the steps of Pilate’s palace, two men stood: One, a peaceful teacher who invited others to a new life marked by other-centered, co-suffering love—the other, a likely revolutionary who attempted to bring freedom through violence. The crowd was invited to choose. At that moment, and in so many moments since, the crowd picked the path of expediency and the long-standing human dream of peace through retributive violence. The way of Jesus challenges us to choose the harder path.”
― Marc Alan Schelske, Walking Otherward: Forty Meditations on Following Jesus’ Path of Other-centered, Co-suffering Love

“Love has no use for coercion. It does no violence. Truth doesn’t play the games of corrupt politicians. As more and more people choose to follow Jesus’ way of love and truth,∗ empires of violence and corruption lose their power.”
― Marc Alan Schelske, Walking Otherward: Forty Meditations on Following Jesus’ Path of Other-centered, Co-suffering Love

“Even in the darkest places of pain, God is present. Even in our most isolating, humiliating experiences, God is with us. If God is with us in our painful powerlessness, then surely God is with the others. All the others. The ones we would rather not look in the eye. The ones we dismiss as the inevitable casualties of maintaining a society that is comfortable for us. The ones we think had it coming. The ones that power crushes.”
― Marc Alan Schelske, Walking Otherward: Forty Meditations on Following Jesus’ Path of Other-centered, Co-suffering Love

“It’s one thing to see the cross as God’s tragic sacrifice to benefit me eternally. It’s an entirely different thing to see the cross as God standing with all of humanity and inviting us to do the same.”
― Marc Alan Schelske, Walking Otherward: Forty Meditations on Following Jesus’ Path of Other-centered, Co-suffering Love