Popular quotes about Christianity! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 23
As for Christianity's alleged concern with truth, Christian faith is to free inquiry what the Mafia is to free enterprise. Christianity may be represented as a competitor in the realm of ideas to be considered on the basis of its merits, but this is mere disguise. Like the Mafia, if Christianity fails to defeat its competition by legitimate means (which is a forgone conclusion), it resorts to strong-arm tactics. Have faith or be damned - this biblical doctrine alone is enough to exclude Christianity from the domain of reason.
George H. SmithOnly Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world - only Christianity.
Tom DeLayIf patriotism is good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is an idle dream, and the sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and if we really want peace, then patriotism is a leftover from barbarous times, which must not only not be evoked and taught, as we now do, but which must be eradicated by all means of preaching, persuasion, contempt, and ridicule. If Christianity is the truth, and if we wish to live in peace, then we must not only have no sympathy for the power of our country, but must even rejoice in its weakening and contribute to it.
Leo TolstoyThere are also two Christianities in the world today. There is (1) the Christianity of the New Testament, and there is (2) the Christianity of accommodation to modernism, egalitarianism, niceness, naturalism, pop psychology, secular humanism, relativism, subjectivism, individualism, "Enlightenment" rationalism or postmodern irrationalism. New converts to the first Christianity are constantly amazed and scandalized by finding many of their clergy to be in love with the second and in fear of the first.
Peter KreeftChristianity is not a patent medicine. Christianity claims to give an account of facts - to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.
C. S. LewisThere is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning.
John PiperHe who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeChristianity is not about not swearing. Itโs not about not having impure thoughts. Really, itโs not about not at all. Christianity is about Jesus.
Judah SmithIn Destroyer of the gods I focus on several major features of early Christianity that made it distinctive, even odd or bizarre .We don't today realize just how different early Christianity was in that context.
Larry HurtadoAs for those who protest that I am robbing people of the great comfort and consolation they gain from Christianity, I can only say that Christianity includes hell, eternal torture for the vast majority of humanity, for most of your relatives and friends. . . . If I could feel that I had robbed anybody of his faith in hell, I should not be ashamed or regretful.
Rupert HughesThe Christian Coalition is still about Christianity, even if it's an idea of Christianity that many Christians might not go along with.
Salman RushdieA religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.
J. C. RyleChristianity israrely understood by those outside its bounds. In fact, this is probably one of the greatest tasks confronting the apologistโto rescue Christianity from misunderstandings.
Alister E. McGrathCivilization - and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe - has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance ... It is no longer possible, as it was in the time of Gibbon, to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis on which it rests ... Christianity ... is in greater need of combative strength than it has been for centuries.
Evelyn WaughTrue practical Christianity (never let it be forgotten) consists in devoting the heart and life to God; in being supremely and habitually governed by a desire to know, and a disposition to fulfill his will, and in endeavoring under the influence of these motives to 'live to his glory.' Where these essential requisites are wanting, however amiable the character may be, however creditable and respectable among men, yet, as it possesses not the grand distinguishing essence, it must not be complimented with the name of Christianity.
William WilberforceTheres some inherently unique characteristics of Christianity, the chief of which is that Christianity teaches that we are saved by what Christ has done for us, instead of we are saved by what we do for God.
Max LucadoIt cannot be emphasized too strongly that Christianity has a vested interest in human misery. Christianity, perhaps more than any religion before or since, capitalized on human suffering; and it was enormously successful in insuring its own existence through the perpetuation of human suffering.
George H. SmithIf one takes full account of the persecution of heretics, the frequency and savagery of the religious wars which Christianity had endangered, the harm caused, especially to children, by the pernicious doctrine of original sin, a case could be made for saying that the world would have been better off without Christianity.
A.J. AyerThe emerging church movement has come to believe that the ultimate context of the spiritual aspirations of a follower of Jesus Christ is not Christianity but rather the kingdom of God. ... to believe that God is limited to it would be an attempt to manage God. If one holds that Christ is confined to Christianity, one has chosen a god that is not sovereign. Soren Kierkegaard argued that the moment one decides to become a Christian, one is liable to idolatry.
Samir SelmanovicIf Christianity is only one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance.
C. S. LewisWhile sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism.
Sadhu Sundar SinghChristianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire.
George SantayanaI think, a lot of things get wrestled around with Christianity in this day and age about what it means, what it stands for and I think it gets the wrong connotation all over the world. So, for me, using baseball and using Jesus' name - I really just want to focus on Him. I don't want to think about Christianity or the religious aspect of it. You just want to focus on Jesus and loving Jesus. Saying you're a Christian shouldn't turn people off. You should love people well and that's Jesus' first commandment!
Clayton KershawChristianity 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 HauerwasIt is not for us to imagine that we can prove the truth of Christianity by our own arguments; nobody can prove the truth of Christianity except the Holy Spirit, by his own almighty work of renewing the blinded heart. It is the sovereign prerogative of Christ's Spirit to convince men's consciences of the truth of Christ's gospel; and Christ's human witnesses must learn to ground their hopes of success not on clever presentation of the truth by man, but on powerful demonstration of the truth by the Spirit.
J. I. PackerThink of Jonathan Edwards who thundered the terrors of God and what Hell was like until men grasped their seats and hung on to them, fearing they were falling into Hell itself. Men were moved by fear to escape damnation. That was believed to be Christianity. Why any coward wanted to keep out of Hell. He might not have had one idea in his soul of what was the real true earmark of Christianity.
John G. LakeEvery civil government is based upon some religion or philosophy of life. Education in a nation will propagate the religion of that nation. In America, the foundational religion was Christianity. And it was sown in the hearts of Americans through the home and private and public schools for centuries. Our liberty, growth, and prosperity was the result of a Biblical philosophy of life. Our continued freedom and success is dependent on our educating the youth of America in the principles of Christianity.
Noah WebsterIt is often asserted that woman owes all the advantages of the position she occupies to-day to Christianity, but the facts of history show that the Christian Church has done nothing specifically for woman's elevation. In the general march of civilization, she has necessarily reaped the advantage of man's higher development, but we must not claim for Christianity all that has been achieved by science, discovery and invention.
Elizabeth Cady StantonAs I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles in the scheme of Christianity, greatly disfiguring and depraving it; I shall show, ... that it has no countenance whatever in reason, or the Scriptures; and, therefore, that the whole doctrine of atonement, with every modification of it, has been a departure from the primitive and genuine doctrine of Christianity.
Joseph PriestleyThey say of us that we are an anti-Christian movement. They even say that I am an outspoken paganist.... I solemnly declare here, before the German public, that I stand on the basis of Christianity, but I declare just as solemnly that I will put down every attempt to introduce confessional matters into our Hitler Youth.
Baldur von SchirachModern philosophy certainly exacts a surrender of all supernaturalism and fixed dogma and rigid institutionalism with which Christianity has been historically associated
John DeweyChristianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
Ngugi wa Thiong'oChristianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established "religion" (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one's "personal Lord and Savior" . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.
Richard RohrThe teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.
Christopher HitchensThere is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
Thomas JeffersonWith reference to other religions, the Church sees a great difference between them and herself. The other religions are expressions of the human soul seeking God, with some beautiful spiritual insights, but also not without errors. Christianity is rather God seeking humanity.
Francis ArinzeThe duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world, and the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.
William F. Buckley, Jr.what about Christianity? Are we right in the face of so long a record of its poverty in international achievement, to keep invoking it as a standard, almost synonymous with civilization?
Rose MacaulayEvery spiritual tradition has this idea of death and resurrection. It's not unique to Christianity.
Deepak ChopraThe Lord God, the creator of Judaism and the God of Judaism and Christianity, empowered our minds and gave us the ability to question.
Michael NovakOf all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.
Thomas PaineThe fall of Rome is often regarded as an object lesson in the wages of sin. Its contemporaries, however, more frequently laid the blame on the rise of Christianity. . . . Although they do not inquire into the future, and either forget or do not know the past, yet defame present times as most unusually beset, as it were, by evils because there is belief in Christ and worship of God, and increasingly less worship of idols.
OrosiusThe spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.
Friedrich Nietzsche