Popular quotes about Christianity! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 79
Discipleship means adherence to Christ and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. An abstract theology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge of the subject of grace or the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact exclude any idea of discipleship whatsoever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ....Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
Dietrich BonhoefferThis Christianity is not a cultural thing. It is not something that should be just a small part of your life; it is not something that you do on Sunday... Christianity is not about you being just like the world all the time and then coming to church on Sunday. If that is your Christianity... you are not Christian.
Paul WasherThe way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost is the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit.
William Lane CraigI verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law... There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations.
Joseph StoryWe do injury to a child if we bring it up in a narrow Christianity, which prevents it from ever becoming capable of perceiving that there are treasures of purest gold to be found in non-Christian civilizations. Laical education does an even greater injury to children. It covers up those treasures, and those of Christianity as well.
Simone WeilIt 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. SmithI've had lots of discussions with my Muslim brothers and sisters who have said to me, "Christianity is a white man's religion" But I'm like, "how is that possible when Christianity went into Africa before it ever went into central Europe?" Even the first people to become a Christian nation were not Romans, they weren't the Byzantines either, they weren't the Greeks... the first people to claim a Christian empire were the Armenians.
Immortal TechniqueIf Christianity is only one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance.
C. S. LewisPopular Christianity has for its emblem a gibbet, for its chief sensation a sanginary execution after torture, for its central mystery is an insane vengeance bought off by a trumpery expiation. But there is a nobler and profounder Christianity which affirms the sacred mystery of equality and forbids the glaring futility and folly of vengeance.
George Bernard ShawChristian Science โฆ is the direct denial both of science and of Christianity, for Science rests wholly on the recognition of truth and Christianity on the recognition of pain.
Gilbert K. ChestertonThe idea that Christianity is basically a religion of moral improvement... has its roots in the liberal Protestantism of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century... It is this stereotype which continues to have influence today... But then came the First World War... What had gone wrong was that the idea of sin had been abandoned by liberal Christianity as some kind of unnecessary hangover from an earlier and less enlightened period in Christian history.
Alister E. McGrathOne 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[ Christianity], in and of itself, sets itself apart inherently, and so, for somebody to say, Well it just seems to me like you can pick between all these religions and still have the same thing. Its kind of like somebody saying, You could pick between 80 bananas and one apple and say you have a banana. You cant call that apple a banana.
Max LucadoChristianity is the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit.The faith once delivered to the saints is a miracle gospel, a miracle salvation with physical evidences.
Reinhard BonnkeWho does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?
James MadisonThe efforts of the majority to destroy every trace of heretical 'blasphemy' proved so successful that, until the discoveries at Nag Hammadi, nearly all our information concerning alternative forms of early Christianity came from the massive orthodox attacks upon them.
Elaine PagelsOf 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.
OrosiusChristianity was neither original nor unique, but that the roots of much of the Judeo/ Christian tradition lay in the prevailing Kamite (ancient Egyptian) culture of the region. We are faced with the inescapable realization that if Jesus had been able to read the documents of old Egypt, he would have been amazed to find his own biography already substantially written some four or five thousand years previously.
Gerald MasseyChristianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it is a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
Dietrich BonhoefferIf following Jesus Christ doesn't cost you anything, it's because you've bought into 'American Christianity.'
Paul WasherShe would have colored gracefully with embarrassment had she not possessed the complexion of one of those โheathen Italians,โ as her mother said, who never colored, gracefully or otherwise. (Convincing her mother that Christianity had, to all intents and purposes, originated with the Italians, thus making them the exact opposite of heathen, was a waste of time and breath.)
Gail CarrigerAmong the many reasons assignable for the sad decay of true Christianity, perhaps the neglecting to assemble ourselves together, in religious societies, may not be one of the least.
George WhitefieldIt may well be a sign of the decadence of the Church and the failure of Christianity that gifts have to be coaxed out of people, and that often they will not give at all unless they get something for their money in the way of entertainment or of goods. Giving which is real giving has a certain recklessness in it.
William BarclayWhether you look at Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, wherever a distinction of sex is made, it is to the advantage of men. If you think of religions as if they were novels, the authors are men, and so are the major characters.
Katha PollittChristianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support the greater it curtails human freedom.
William O. DouglasWe talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed.... This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man's earthly pilgrimage.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The great brainwave of the inventors of Christianity: "God is love!" And then? What does it change? You may always preach a god of love to men, they will make use of him to sanctify their villainies and their crimes "for the good fight" as well as the massacres en masse, blessing priests leading the way.
Francois CavannaOne of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary.
Francis SchaefferI find the concept of intelligent design rather dishonest. One should openly stand up for the existence of Allah, should sincerely stand up for religion, for Islam. Or, if one is a Christian, one should honestly stand up for Christianity.
Harun YahyaChristianity has always been against the flow of culture and continues to call us in the opposite direction of the way the world is heading. Instead of falling in love with ourselves, Christ followers are called to deny themselves. Instead of trusting in the power they possess, they are called to surrender to God's higher power. Instead of looking within for the answers in life, they are called to acknowledge that His ways are higher. The decision to follow Christ has always been an "all or nothing" decision. There's no way to stand up to the world while you're trying to straddle the fence.
Matthew WestI left Christianity because I wanted to be a moral person. That is why I left. I no longer believed in its lies.
Anne RiceWe have different levels of slavery. We've got educational slavery. All the major religions of the world, even Christianity and Islam, are engaged in some form of servitude of people. I don't look favorably on either one although I think properly practiced all religions are basically good.
John Henrik ClarkeAs a result of the assault on Christianity, the Christian faith has been isolated more and more into a tiny private sector of life and removed from the whole public spectrum of America.
D. James KennedyAfricans sensed in their hearts that Jesus did not mock their respect for the sacred or their clamor for an invincible Savior, so they beat their sacred drums for him until the stars skipped and danced in the skies. After that dance the stars weren't little anymore. Christianity helped Africans to become renewed Africans, not remade Europeans.
Lamin SannehIndividual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
Winston ChurchillWe learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested.
Surya DasOn what does the Christian argument for Immortality really rest? It stands upon the pedestal on which the theologian rests the whole of historical Christianity-the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
William Henry DrummondIf you're a writer and you are at all inclined to speak as a Christian in some way, you realize very quickly that the conventional language is pretty much useless. It takes a long time to get past that, or it has taken me a long time. People in conventional Christianity have spoken lightly and sometimes frivolously of God for a long time. It's a word that needs to be used sparingly, in my opinion.
Wendell Berry