quotations about Christianity
Nothing has so stripped Christianity of its power, as the conversion of it into a state machine, as the polluting touch of the politician, who has caused it to be preached to the lower ranks, and to be professed by the higher, in order that the old polity, with its inveterate abuses, may stand fast, and that the accumulation of property in a few hands may be undisturbed. Religion, taught for such ends, is among the worst foes of social progress.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Indeed, for us alone, who are called the enemies of the Christian religion, for us alone it is reserved, and even made the highest duty ... really to exercise love, this highest commandment of Christ and this only way to true Christianity.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"The Reaction in Germany"
It took time for the church to come to terms with the ignominy of the cross. Church fathers forbade its depiction in art until the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine.... Now, though, the symbol is everywhere: artists beat gold into the shape of the Roman execution device, baseball players cross themselves before batting, and cancy confectioners even make chocolate crosses for the faithful to eat during Holy Week. Strange as it may seem, Christianity has become a religion of the cross--the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, in modern terms.
PHILIP YANCEY
The Jesus I Never Knew
I have found that lived out, the hardest place to be a Christian is to be in a nice prosperous country with a lot of entertainment options because there’s so many distractions.
PHILIP YANCEY
"Interview: Philip Yancey on U.S. Christianity, Faith That Matters", Christian Post, Oct. 2, 2010
The Christian religion seems to have fulfilled its great biological purpose, in so far as we are able to judge. It has led human thought to independence, and has lost its significance, therefore, to a yet undetermined extent.... It seems to me that we might still make use in some way of its form of thought, and especially of its great wisdom of life, which for two thousand years has proven to be particularly efficacious.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us--a crucified God--must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.
JOHN PIPER
Don't Waste Your Life
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
BRENNAN MANNING
attributed, Jesus Loves You ... This I Know
The way to begin a Christian life is not to study theology. Piety before theology. Right living will produce right thinking. Yet many men, when their consciences are aroused, run for catechisms, and commentaries, and systems. They do not mean to be shallow Christians. They intend to be thorough, if they enter upon the Christian life at all. Now, theologies are well in their place; but repentance and love must come before all other experiences. First a cure for your sin-sick soul, and then theologies. Suppose a man were taken with the cholera, and, instead of sending for a physician, he should send to a bookstore, and buy all the books which have been written on the human system, and, while the disease was working in his vitals, he should say, "I'll not put myself in the hands of any of these doctors. I shall probe this thing to the bottom." Would it not be better for him first to be cured of the cholera?
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Christianity is a system of life communicated from God to the soul of man, embodied in Jesus Christ, who is himself the essential revelation.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Christians! It is your duty not only to be good, but to shine; and, of all the lights which you kindle on the face, Joy will reach farthest out to sea, where troubled mariners are seeking the shore.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
For many centuries after the establishment of Christianity, mankind became more barbarous, ignorant, and miserable than before, instead of assisting the human mind in its progress to improvement, that system completely retarded it; a gloomy superstition, which sprung out of these gospels, cramped its energies, and fettered its exertions; instead of guiding society to freedom, peace, and happiness, there was founded on the authority of these writings a system of the most horrible and debasing oppression.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Christianity came into existence to lighten the heart, but now it needs to burden the heart to start with so it can lighten it afterwards. Consequently, it will perish.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Human, All Too Human
What could make me love
my fellow Christian better
than to see that God loves us all
as we were all one soul?
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Meditations with Julian of Norwich
Christians should be like a flower store: the odor of sanctity should betray them wherever they are.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
When I compare the clamorous preaching and passionate declamation, too common in the Christian world, with the composed dignity, the deliberate wisdom, the freedom from all extravagances, which characterized Jesus, I can imagine no greater contrast; and I am sure that the fiery zealot is no representative of Christianity.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.
KARL KRAUS
Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths
You see, we're all born sinful except for Jesus who was perfect, of course. And he was sent to save us. But how could he save us unless we're sinning? So we have to go on sinning in order to be saved and go to Heaven. That's how Christianity works. That's why it suits so many people.
CHARLIE MCMANUS
Nuns on the Run
To be the instrument of converting a single soul, is so great a blessing and honor, that if there were no other way to accomplish it, any true Christian would be willing to lay down his life.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
The Revival and Its Lessons
All sincere partakers of Christian virtue are essentially one. In the spirit which pervades them dwells a uniting power found in no other tie. Though separated by oceans, they have sympathies strong and indissoluble.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Religion is not the tame and sleepy thing which some suppose. This misapprehension is derived partly from erroneous views of doctrine, but yet more from the examples of actual Christianity among us, which fall so far short of the biblical standard.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
Faith