“Certainly it is true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject neither to law nor sword, and have need of neither. But take heed and first fill the world with real Christians before you attempt to rule it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be un-Christian, even if they are all baptized and Christian in name.”

Source: Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523), p. 91

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Martin Luther214

seminal figure in Protestant Reformation 1483–1546

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Conrad Grebel (1498–1526) co-founder of the Swiss Brethren movement

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John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

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“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

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“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.”

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Stanley Hauerwas (1940) American theologian

Source: Matthew (2006), p. 62 http://books.google.com/books?id=MbRzBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA62

“A Christian nation has never had the slightest respect for the rights of barbarians; neither has any Christian sect any respect for the rights of other sects. Anciently, the sects discussed with fire and sword, and even now, something happens almost every day to show that the old spirit that was in the Inquisition still slumbers in the Christian breast.”

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“We must first experience the kingdom if we are even to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire. Christian freedom lies in service, Christian equality is equality before God, and neither can be achieved through the coercive efforts of liberal idealists who would transform the world into their image.”

Stanley Hauerwas (1940) American theologian

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

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Martin Luther214

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