Quotes about Christ
page 6

“[The Jews] tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.”

Bashar al-Assad (1965) President of Syria

As quoted in "The disappearance of the Jews" http://www.economist.com/node/617242, The Economist (May 10, 2001)

Religion, Way

“We bow our heads in worship on this day and give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty He has bestowed upon us over the past year. We raise our voices in holy gladness to celebrate the victory of the risen Christ over the terrible forces of death. Easter is a joyful festival! It is a celebration because it is indeed a festival of hope! Easter marks the renewal of life! The triumph of the light of truth over the darkness of falsehood! Easter is a festival of human solidarity, because it celebrates the fulfilment of the Good News! The Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind! Each Easter marks the rebirth of our faith. It marks the victory of our risen Saviour over the torture of the cross and the grave. Our Messiah, who came to us in the form of a mortal man, but who by his suffering and crucifixion attained immortality. Our Messiah, born like an outcast in a stable, and executed like criminal on the cross. Our Messiah, whose life bears testimony to the truth that there is no shame in poverty: Those who should be ashamed are they who impoverish others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being persecuted: Those who should be ashamed are they who persecute others. Whose life proclaims the truth that there is no shame in being conquered: Those who should be ashamed are they who conquer others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being dispossessed: Those who should be ashamed are they who dispossess others. Whose life testifies to the truth that there is no shame in being oppressed: Those who should be ashamed are they who oppress others.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

At his speech in Moria, on 3 April 1994
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1994)

Life, Death, Truth, Faith

“Christ embodies the ideal of human perfection: in Him all bias and defects are removed, and the masculine and feminine virtues are united and their weaknesses redeemed; therefore, His true followers will be progressively exalted over their natural limitations. That is why we see in holy men a tenderness and a truly maternal solicitude for the souls entrusted to them while in holy women there is manly boldness, proficiency, and determination.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace (1932)

Women, Men, Soul, Nature

“There in Rangoon I realized that the gods
were enemies, just like God,
of the poor human being.
Gods
in alabaster extended
like white whales,
gods gilded like spikes,
serpent gods entwining
the crime of being born,
naked and elegant buddhas
smiling at the cocktail party
of empty eternity
like Christ on his horrible cross,
all of them capable of anything,
of imposing on us their heaven,
all with torture or pistol
to purchase piety or burn our blood,
fierce gods made by men
to conceal their cowardice,
and there it was all like that,
the whole earth reeking of heaven,
and heavenly merchandise.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Allí en Rangoon comprendí que los dioses
eran tan enemigos como Dios
del pobre ser humano.
Dioses
de alabastro tendidos
como ballenas blancas,
dioses dorados como las espigas,
dioses serpientes enroscados
al crimen de nacer,
budhas desnudos y elegantes
sonriendo en el coktail
de la vacía eternidad
como Cristo en su cruz horrible,
todos dispuestos a todo,
a imponernos su cielo,
todos con llagas o pistola
para comprar piedad o quemarnos la sangre,
dioses feroces del hombre
para esconder la cobardía,
y allí todo era así,
toda la tierra olía a cielo,
a mercadería celeste.
Religión en el Este (Religion in the East) from Memorial of Isla Negra [Memorial de Isla Negra] (1964), trans. by Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 463).

Men, God, Smile

“"We asked for them in February. It's June now; they must be coming." "They've been saying that about Christ for eighteen hundred years."”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Richard Sharpe and Major General Nairn
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Regiment (1986)

“In their enmity to the truth, they set up another religion, an idol-worship, wherein the creature, with its works and its fleshly righteousness, has something to boast of. This they do in order to render vain the work of Christ, and to destroy the work of the Spirit. They do it also that they may have a wide mantle under which to cloak their crimes.”

Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge (1803–1874) Dutch minister

Source: Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 9

Truth, Religion

“To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

New Testament Commentaries, John 1.32; as quoted in Thomas F. Torrance, "A Harmony of Matthew, Mark and Luke” https://books.google.com/books/about/A_harmony_of_the_Gospels_Matthew_Mark_an.html?id=0diPvgAACAAJ (St. Andrew's Press, Edinburgh, 1972), p.32. and "The Gospel of St. John: The Story of the Son of God" https://books.google.com/books?isbn=113704120X St John Variant: And at this day, the blessedness brought to us by Christ cannot be the subject of our praise, without reminding us, at the same time, of the distinguished honor which God was pleased to bestow on Mary, in making her the mother of his Only Begotten Son.

God, Thinking, Time

“Jesus' Wife: "And where have YOU been for the past three days, Mr. Winemaker?"
Jesus Christ: "It's okay, I'll tell you… Not that's important or anything, but I was DEAD!!! I'M IN A FUCKIN' GRAVE OUTSIDE OF TOWN! I'M FIGHTIN' DEATH, HELL, DECOMPOSURE! I'M CHANGIN' SPIRITUAL FORM, ABOUT TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND I GO "WAIT A SECOND! I GOTTA GO BACK BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN!"”

Sam Kinison (1953–1992) American comedian

the argument Jesus Christ has with his wife following his return home after the Resurrection, Louder than Hell.

Death, God, Hell, Waiting

“When summer draws near and the sun rises higher, it draws the moisture out of the earth through the roots, and through the trunks of the trees, into the twigs; and hence come foliage, flower, and fruit. So likewise, when Christ the Eternal Sun rises and ascends in our hearts, so that it is summer in the adornment of our virtues, He gives His light and His heat to our desires, and draws the heart from all the multiplicity of earthly things, and brings about unity and inwardness; and makes the heart grow and bring forth the leaves of inward love, the flowers of ardent devotion, and the fruits of thanksgiving and praise, and makes these fruits to endure eternally, in humble grief, because of our shortcomings.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Love, Flowers, Tree, Light

“All we want in Christ, we shall find in Christ. If we want little, we shall find little. If we want much, we shall find much; but if in utter helplessness we cast our all on Christ, He will be to us the whole treasury of God.”

Henry Benjamin Whipple (1822–1901) Bishop of Minnesota

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 95.

God

“He wanted to tell me that he thought he finally knew why Christ said to call no man Fool. Christ had said it, Seymour thought I'd want to know, because there are no fools. Dopes, yes — fools, no.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)

Fools

“We too know the Jesus that the minister referred to. We have had an experience with him and we believe firmly in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. I can see no conflict between our devotion to Jesus Christ and our present action. In fact, I can see a necessary relationship. If one is truly devoted to the religion of Jesus he will seek to rid the earth of social evils. The gospel is social as well as personal..”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Stride Toward Freedom (1958); also quoted in The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1982), by Stephen B. Oates, pp. 81-82
1950s
Variant: We believe firmly in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. I can see no conflict between our devotion to Jesus Christ and our present action. In fact, I can see a necessary relationship. If one is truly devoted to the religion of Jesus he will seek to rid the earth of social evils. The gospel is social as well as personal.

God, Religion, Evil, Personality

“Monsieur, sit down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am not unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not trouble your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and so do I.”

Charlotte Brontë book Villette

Source: Villette (1853), Chapter XXXVI: The Apple of Discord

God, Faith, Heart

“Write her a poem, spill your heart to her in sweet cadences; but I didn't know how to write poetry. It was love and dove with me, bad rhymes, blundering sentiment. Oh Christ in Heaven, I'm no writer: I can't even put down a little quatrain. I'm no good in this world. I stood at the window and waved my hands at the sky; no good at all, just a cheap fake; neither writer nor lover; neither fish nor fowl.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Love, World, Lovers, Fish

“Out whole civilization was a cemetery where Jesus Christ and Socrates, Mozart and Haydn, Dante and Goethe were but indecipherable names on moldering stones; and the mourners who stood round affecting a pretense of sorrow would give much to believe in these inscriptions which once were holy, or at least to utter one heart-felt word of grief and despair about this world that is no more. And nothing was left them but the embarrassed grimaces of a company round a grave.”

Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf (1927)

World, Heart, Despair

“Man is in fact nailed down — like Christ on the Cross — to a grid of paradoxes... he balances between the torment of not knowing his mission and the joy of carrying it out, between nothingness and meaningfulness. And like Christ, he is in fact victorious by virtue of his defeats.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

As quoted in "Václav Havel: Heir to a Spiritual Legacy" by Richard L. Stanger in Christian Century (11 April 1990)

Victory, Joy

“The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Conversations with a Christian Lady (1774)

“Jesus Christ is trying to follow me, my footsteps, all the way. He stayed in Paradise, because he did not marry. But I gave him marriage. Don’t you want to meet the wives of Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad? They sent letters of gratitude to me from spirit world. They pledge that even if their religion disappears, they will follow me. Can you imagine anyone in this world claiming to have married those past saints? The rings I prepared for their marriage cost a great deal per couple. Did I do that because I am crazy?”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Jae Sa gwa Adam Kwon Shidae Dorae: The Arrival of the Era of the Fourth Adam's Realm http://www.unification.net/news/news19991024.html (1999-10-24)

Marriage, World, Religion, Way

“He subjected himself in sincerity to the good men whom he visited, and learned thoroughly where each surpassed him in zeal and discipline. He observed the graciousness of one; the unceasing prayer of another; he took knowledge of another's freedom from anger and another's loving-kindness; he gave heed to one as he watched, to another as he studied; one he admired for his endurance, another for his fasting and sleeping on the ground; the meekness of one and the long-suffering of another he watched with care, while he took note of the piety towards Christ and the mutual love which animated all. Thus filled, he returned to his own place of discipline, and henceforth would strive to unite the qualities of each, and was eager to show in himself the virtues of all.”

Athanasius of Alexandria (295–373) Patriarch of Alexandria

§ 4
Life of Anthony of Egypt

Love, Men, Knowledge, Sleep

“We can be sure our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will now guide you to the glory of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Homily during the Requiem Mass of the funeral of [Pope John Paul II], on April 8, 2005
2005

God, Sadness, Hope, Soul

“In his Gospel, St. John, through long and deep contemplation, acknowledges Jesus to be the Logos of God. In his epistles he points entirely away from himself toward Christ. Finally, in the Apocalypse, in the vision of the Lamb of God, Old and New Testaments are united, and the whole drama of salvation is summed up.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) Swedish Catholic theologian

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Our Task https://books.google.it/books?id=yEjT5yVci2gC&pg=PT0, trans. John Saward, Ignatius Press, 1994. Our Task: A Report and a Plan (1984)

God

“If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 58

Love, Wisdom, God

“The Church offers comradeship with Jesus in all the affairs of life. It gives men a clearer understanding of the mind of Christ. It is through Christ that they come to know God. The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Statement co-authored with Joseph Fort Newton and Charles E. Jefferson, edited by Charles Steltzle, as quoted in The American Scrap Book (1928), p. 15; also in Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches (1930), p. 85

Life, Men, God, Friendship

“Christ's miracles were vivid manifestations to the senses that He is the Saviour of the body — and now as then the issues of life and death are in His hands — that our daily existence is a perpetual miracle. The extraordinary was simply a manifestation of God's power in the ordinary.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 65.

Life, Death, God, Sense

“Faith is trusting Jesus to lead us and going where He leads. What avails it to me to analyze Saratoga water, and to believe in its virtues? I must drink the water if I want its purifying power. And the soul that has not actually drunk of Christ can never be purged from sin.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 227.

Faith, Soul, Drink, Water

“Christ," he remarked, puzzled, "this is a dingy way to die.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 373)

Way

“And for me Michelangelo's greatest work is one that was in his studio partly finished, partly unfinished when he died 'The Rondanini Pietà'. I don't know of any other single work of art by anyone that is more poignant, more moving. It isn't the most powerful of Michelangelo's works – it's a mixture, in fact, of two styles…. the changing became so drastic that I think he knocked the head off the sculpture… So the figure must originally have been a good deal taller. And if we see also the proportion of the length of the body of Christ compared with the length of the legs, there's no doubt that the whole top of the original sculpture has been cut away. Now this to me is a great question. Why should I and other sculptors I know, my contemporaries – I think that Giacometti feels this, I know Marino Marini feels it – find this work one of the most moving and greatest works we know of when it's a work which has such disunity in it?… But that's so moving, so touching: the position of the heads, the whole tenderness of the top part of the sculpture, is in my opinion more what it is by being in contrast with the rather finished, tough, leathery, typical Michelangelo legs. The top part is Gothic and the lower part is sort of Renaissance.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Quote of Henri Moore in his interview with David Silvester, in 'The Sunday Times Magazine', 16 Febr. 1964, pp. 18, 20-22
1955 - 1970

Art, Feeling, Question, Thinking

“There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, nothing will be overpowering, when, living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me."”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 120.

Life

“The time has come for us to stand a little taller, to lift our eyes and stretch our minds to a greater comprehension and understanding of the grand millennial mission of this, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Conference Report, Apr. 1995, 95.

Understanding, Time

“As the blood of Christ is the fountain of all merit, so the Spirit is the fountain of all spiritual life; and until He quickens us, imparts the principle of divine life to our souls, we can put forth no vital act of faith to lay hold upon Jesus Christ.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 319.

Life, Faith, Soul

“Each brotherly compassion that man hath on his fellow Christians, with charity, it is Christ in him.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 28
Variant: Each kind compassion that man hath on his even-Christians with charity, it is Christ in him.

“Where is Christ, the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights. A soldier does not build a house; he does not aspire to possession of lands; he does not concern himself with devious, coin-purveying trade. … The soldier enjoys a sustenance provided by the king; he need not furnish his own, nor vex himself in this regard.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Ascetical Works, p. 9

Housing, Forgetting

“The Christianity of the first centuries recognized as productions of good art, only legends, lives of saints, sermons, prayers, and hymn-singing evoking love of Christ, emotion at his life, desire to follow his example, renunciation of worldly life, humility, and the love of others; all productions transmitting feelings of personal enjoyment they considered to be bad, and therefore rejected … This was so among the Christians of the first centuries who accepted Christ teachings, if not quite in its true form, at least not yet in the perverted, paganized form in which it was accepted subsequently.
But besides this Christianity, from the time of the wholesale conversion of whole nations by order of the authorities, as in the days of Constantine, Charlemagne and Vladimir, there appeared another, a Church Christianity, which was nearer to paganism than to Christ's teaching. And this Church Christianity … did not acknowledge the fundamental and essential positions of true Christianity — the direct relationship of each individual to the Father, the consequent brotherhood and equality of all people, and the substitution of humility and love in place of every kind of violence — but, on the contrary, having founded a heavenly hierarchy similar to the pagan mythology, and having introduced the worship of Christ, of the Virgin, of angels, of apostles, of saints, and of martyrs, but not only of these divinities themselves but of their images, it made blind faith in its ordinances an essential point of its teachings.
However foreign this teaching may have been to true Christianity, however degraded, not only in comparison with true Christianity, but even with the life-conception of the Romans such as Julian and others, it was for all that, to the barbarians who accepted it, a higher doctrine than their former adoration of gods, heroes, and good and bad spirits. And therefore this teaching was a religion to them, and on the basis of that religion the art of the time was assessed. And art transmitting pious adoration of the Virgin, Jesus, the saints, and the angels, a blind faith in and submission to the Church, fear of torments and hope of blessedness in a life beyond the grave, was considered good; all art opposed to this was considered bad.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What is Art? (1897)

Love, Life, God, People

“The Saviour who flitted before the patriarchs through the fog of the old dispensation, and who spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets, articulate but unseen, is the same Saviour who, on the open heights of the gospel, and in the abundant daylight of this New Testament, speaks to us. Still all along it is the same Jesus, and that Bible is from beginning to end, all of it, the word of Christ.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 32.

Time, Past

“Peace is the gift of God who through the death and resurrection of Christ, reconciled humans with himself and with one another. However, peace is also a human achievement since it is to be ushered in through the practice of love and justice.”

Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) Indian theologian

Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2007) World Peace: An Impossible Dream? , Mumbai: St Pauls
On Peace

Love, Death, God, Peace

“Meanwhile these islands, stiff with cold and frost, and in a distant region of the world, remote from the visible sun, received the beams of light, that is, the holy precepts of Christ, the true Sun, showing to the whole world his splendour, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses every thing temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered with its professors.”
Interea glaciali figore rigenti insulae et velut longiore terrarum secessu soli visibili non proximae verus ille non de firmamento solum temporali sed de summa etiam caelorum arce tempora cuncta excedente universo orbi praefulgidum sui coruscum ostendens, tempore, ut scimus, summo Tiberii Caesaris, quo absque ullo impedimento delatoribus militum eiusdem, radios suos primum indulget, id est sua praecepta, Christus.

Gildas De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae

Section 8.
De Excidio Britanniae (On the Ruin of Britain)

Death, World, Religion, Light

“At that moment I railed against a God who could condemn such an innocent soul to Purgatory. What had Sedenko done that was not the result of his upbringing or his religion, which encouraged him to kill in the name of Christ? It came to me that perhaps God had become senile, that He had lost His memory and no longer remembered the purpose of placing Man on Earth. He had become petulant, He had become whimsical. He retained His power over us, but could no longer be appealed to. And where was His Son, who had been sent to redeem us? Was God’s Plan not so much mysterious as impossible for us to accept: because it was a malevolent one?”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 7 (pp. 85-86)

God, Religion, Soul, Memory

“The Buddha came embodying in Himself the divine quality of wisdom; He was the manifestation of Light, and the Teacher of the way of enlightenment. He demonstrated in Himself the processes of illumination and became "the Illumined One". Light, wisdom, reason, as divine yet human attributes, were focussed in the Buddha. He challenged the people to tread the Path of Illumination of which wisdom, mental perception and the intuition are aspects. Then came the next Teacher, the Christ. He embodied in Himself a still greater divine principle – greater than the Mind, that of Love; yet at the same time, He embraced within Himself all that the Buddha had of light. Christ was the expression of both light and love.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Problems Of Humanity (1944), p. 150/1

Love, Wisdom, People, Way

“He weren't no saint—but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim.
'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing—
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.”

John Hay (1838–1905) American statesman, diplomat, author and journalist

"Jim Bludso", Pike County Ballads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_County_Ballads, (1871).

Men, Chance, Dead

“The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the "religious."”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 47.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

Life, God, Hope

“"I’m not a huge practicing Christian myself, but it just staggers me that people who claim to be can stand up and spout – like your president George Bush – can stand up and spout this bullshit about God supporting one side over another in war, which is why I wrote the lyrics of the song "What God Wants": “God wants crusade/God wants Jihad.” Well it may well be that God doesn’t want either of those things. They’re manifestations of the insecurities of the Muslim and Christian communities. I hate when someone uses religion to bolster war in the world: it's extremely disgusting and offensive for me, and for all christians, because that was not what Christ was trying to teach."”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

"Roger Waters talks about What God Wants", a 1993 interview
Philosophy

God, Hate, War, People

“The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God. The council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the father. This was in the year 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Great Infidels (1881)

God, Question

“All which she entreats, for His Sake, to be done,
Who suffer'd to save them, Christ Jesus, His Son,—
In respect to the World, the Redeemer of All;
"To the Church of the Faithful, most chiefly," saith Paul;
And to them who shall suffer, whoever they be,
In the Spirit of Christ, in the highest Degree.
How ought such a Goodness all Minds to prepare
For an hearty "Amen" to this Catholic Pray'r!”

John Byrom (1692–1763) Poet, inventor of a shorthand system

Source: Miscellaneous Poems (1773), A Paraphrase on the Prayer used in The Church Liturgy for All Sorts and Conditions Of Men, IX

World, Faith, Suffering

“The work of the Spirit is to impart life, to implant hope, to give liberty, to testify of Christ, to guide us into all truth, to teach us all things, to comfort the believer, and to convict the world of sin.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 318.

Life, Truth, World, Hope

“Christ as King means humanity free from bondage to ideologies and institutions, free from revolutionary causes as well, free from idolatry of Caesar, and, not the least of it, free from religion which tries to disguise such slavery as virtuous.”

William Stringfellow (1928–1985) American theologian

Source: William Stringfellow: Essential Writings (2013), "Jesus the Criminal" (1969), p. 67

Religion

“Did you know that when God made the universe, he didn't lift one finger? He didn't turn one screw or pound one nail. He just spoke and every molecule lined up. That's incredible to think about. When He speaks, the waves lay down; the wind quits blowing. When He speaks, the dead come to life. When He speaks, the universe is created! Everything obeys the voice of God, except us. He's having some trouble out of us right now. But He's going to fix that one of these days when "every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father," coming to a city near you. But the scoffers are willingly ignorant of how God made the heavens by His Word, and they're ignorant of how the earth was standing out of the water and in the water.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

Life, God, Thinking, Universe

“By unessential things in reference to religion I mean first of all, the miracles, to which nevertheless such particular importance is attached by the Christian religion. No one can affirm that miracles of themselves establish a single article of faith. If we granted that articles of faith carried with them conviction and inherent credibility, how should we dare to require miracles in order to believe them? If we granted that the resurrection had been proved to be true by the most undoubted and unanimous witnesses, as in all fairness it ought to be, we could surely believe it without any assistant miracle. If we granted that Christ really did return in the clouds of Heaven, as according to promise he ought to have done, we should certainly want no miracles to prove it.”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) German philosopher

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, p. 69

Faith, Religion

“At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

as interviewed by David Van Biema, "Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop," Time Magazine, Feb. 07, 2008 http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html

“And Christ himself, who preached the life of love, was yet as lonely as any man that ever lived. Yet I could not say that he was mistaken because he preached the life of love and fellowship, and lived and died in loneliness; nor would I dare assert his way was wrong because a billion men have since professed his way and never followed it.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

The Anatomy of Loneliness (1941)

Love, Life, Men, Way

“Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 522.

Life, God, World, Nature

“You are not sent to preach death and sin and judgment, but life and holiness and salvation – not to be a witness against the people, but to be a witness for God – to preach the good news – Christ Himself.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 258).

Life, Death, God, People

“So the poor instead of bread made do with a picture
of the bleeding scourged and nailed-up Christ
and prayed to that image of their helplessness”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

Marat, act 1, scene 13 (pp. 28-29)
Marat/Sade (1963)

“When you have honestly and penitently sought out Christ, and confessed your sins to Him, and put yourself wholly in His hands, then stay there. Follow Him. Keep close to Him and Him alone. In your store, in your shop, in your field, in your home, or wherever you are, be ever saying, "Now, Jesus, Lead me! Teach me Thy way! Hold fast to my hand!"”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 433.

Way, Home

“There's a silence in this house today. There's a silence all over Northern Ireland today. There's grieving and there is despair. But behind the despair, there is being born a unity that we haven't seen before… I would like to commend publicly here today the priest of Antrim, the Roman Catholic priest. He made one of the greatest speeches I've ever heard from any of the cloth and he really said in Down to everyone that he did not want in his parish anybody like these men who did this task. And those of us who know Northern Ireland know that it takes some show of strength in a place like Antrim to say those words… We're coming up to St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick preached the gospel of Jesus Christ in Ireland. And I was just thinking today, the only thing these murderers have done: they have desecrated the shamrock by trying to pour the blood of their innocent victims upon it.”

Ian Paisley (1926–2014) Politician and former church minister

Speaking in the House of Commons after the shooting dead of two unarmed British soldiers outside Massereene Barracks in March 2009.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVnQwR-HtCo

Men, Thinking, Silence, Housing

“And you mother still close to me,
you know that it is not enough to live an ordered and honest life.
You have been faithful for years to bring order into our house.
As soon as the dawn appeared in the night sky,
you rose towards the tasks awaiting you –
in the silence of a mental prayer.
Perhaps it is not enough even the overwhelming love,
to which you gave the sober expression of concrete acts.
The sacred wool, the steaming milk and the bed
composed with inimitable care by your hands.
Going back in time you recounted to your children their births,
and the birthdays have slowly vanished.
The beginning is now found from a thousand beginnings,
with the ancient, with the unknown, with Christ.
A present act includes them all,
opening after the events have passed.
And there is a severe duty for struggle,
something in our own life could be wrenched away by it.
The guards will soon appear,
and they will take me to my cell with the high window.
You will still be with me,
as mother and inexhaustible human presence.
Giving freely of your love, you still knew that your son is freedom.
You were a nearness, that always found something to do.
I have watched you unflinching under hardness and spite,
always moving, and acting,
holding back your inner rebellion you had pity on rage.
Now we are together to work and open all around.
In the loving gift to the world which ever crucifies us
is our fulfilment.
Seeing its limitations, still to treasure everything
is the gesture of infinite miracle,
and you were right: order comes from this principle,
the earthly goods, as our brothers the prophets tell us,
will be given unto us.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Love, Life, Children, World

“Who will disallow those Slovenes who live between the Mura and the Raba the right to translate these holy books into the language, in which they understand God talking to them through prophets and apostles' letters? God tells them too to read these books in order to get prepared for salvation in the faith of Jesus Christ. But they cannot receive this from Trubar's, Dalmatin's, Francel's, or other translations (versio). The language of our Hungarian Slovenes is different from other languages and unique in its own characteristics. Already in the aforementioned translations there are differences. Therefore, a man had to come who would translate the Bible and bring praise for God and salvation for his nation. God encouraged István Küzmics for this work, a priest from Surd, who translated – with the help of the Holy Spirit and with great diligence – the whole New Testament from Greek into the language you are reading and hearing. With the help (and expenses) of many religious souls, the Holy Bible was printed and given to you for the same reason Küzmics prepared Vöre Krsztsánszke krátki návuk, which was printed in 1754.”

István Küzmics (1723–1779) Hungarian translator

Sto de tak kráto naſim med Mürom i Rábom prebívajoucſim ſzlovenom tè ſz. Bo'ze knige na ſzvoj jezik, po ſterom ſzamom li vu ſzvoji Prorokov i Apoſtolov píſzmaj gucsécsega Bogà razmijo, obracsati? geto je nyim zapovidáva Goſzpodin Boug ſteti; da je moudre vcſiníjo na zvelicſanye po vöri vu Jezuſi Kriſztuſi; tou pa ni ſzTruberovòga, ni Dalmatinovoga, ni Frenczelovoga, niti znikakſega drügoga obracsanya (verſio) csakati ne morejo. Ár tej naſ Vogrſzki ſzlovenov jezik od vſzej drügi doſzta tühoga i ſzebi laſztvinoga mà. Kakti i vu naprek zracsúnani ſze veliki rázlocsek nahája. Zâto je potrejbno bilou tákſemi csloveki naprej ſztoupiti: kíbi vetom delao Bougi na díko ‘a’ ſzvojemi národi pa na zvelicsanye. Liki je i Goſzpodin Boug na tou nadigno Stevan Küzmicsa Surdánſzkoga Farara: kí je zGrcskoga pouleg premoucſi i pomáganya Dühà ſzvétoga zvelikom gyedrnoſztjom na ete, kákſega ſtés i csüjes, jezik czejli Nouvi Zákon obrnyeni i ſztroskom vnougi vörni düsícz vö zoſtámpani i tebi rávno tak za toga zroka, za ſteroga volo ti je 'z pred temtoga od nyega ſzprávleni Vöre Krſztsánſzke Krátki Návuk.Foreword of the Nouvi Zákon

God, Books, Faith, Soul

“I will give you another scripture, Jer. 46. 27, 28 — out of which the Lord shewed me what he would do for me and the rest of his servants. — But after he was pleased to reveal himself to me… Ever since that time I have been confident of what he hath revealed unto me… Therefore I desire you to look to it, for you see this scripture fulfilled this day and therefore I desire you that as you tender the Lord and the church and commonwealth to consider and look what you do. You have power over my body but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul, and assure yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go on in this course you begin you will I bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it…”

Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643) participant in the Antinomian Controversy

Trial and Interrogation (1637)

Soul, Confidence, Time

“The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or—if they think there is not—at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book II, Chapter 5, "The Practical Conclusion"
Mere Christianity (1952)

Love, Life, Men, God

“The Churches as Churches have always been and cannot fail to be institutions not only alien to, but directly hostile towards, Christ's teaching.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894)

Hostility

“It was the affection of Christ, not the brutality of a town, that healed Zacchaeus.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

“Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn't come from God's Word, it comes from that cult-like, pagan religion. Now you say, "Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the Blood of Christ and Salvation."Isn't that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don't do it with purple paper and red ink, you're not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible.And that's what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life.”

Robert Jeffress (1955) Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas

The Response, American Family Association prayer rally, Reliant Stadium, Houston, , quoted in * 2011-10-08
Jeffress Says Satan Is Behind Roman Catholicism
Brian
Tashman
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jeffress-says-satan-behind-roman-catholicism

Life, Money, God, People

“It is said that the law of Christ governs European civilization. That is a lie. It shines on it's surface, but does not penetrate to it's entrails.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Os Brâmanes (1866). p. 107
Os Brâmanes (1866)

Lie, Law

“I started to see this pattern being there. It was a small office and you can hear everybody talking. And it was just always a lot of activity. Because, you know it started out with the FBI Filegate problem when Craig Livingston (director of the White House’s Office of Personnel Security) got all of those FBI files on so many people. Like 900 files. And if they said 900 it was probably a thousand nine hundred. And then you had the travel office fiasco. Then Whitewater in ‘94 was really starting to kick in. And at that time Robert Fiske was the special prosecutor; that’s before Ken Starr. And they were looking at indicting all kinds of people…And of course, the Clintons were very, very involved with that. There were just so many of those scandals. Cheryl Mills was in and out of the office. The whole cast of characters. They’ve been around forever. I just started hearing over and over and over again. The first time I heard it I thought it, wow! And I heard Bernie Nussbaum talking extremely very loudly. To Hillary. And basically said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Hillary. All you have to say is you don’t recall. You don’t remember anything. Nobody can argue with that.”

Kathleen Willey (1946) White House aide

Kathleen Willey: I Overheard White House Staff Teaching Hillary Her Trademark ‘I Don’t Recall’ Defense https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/05/kathleen-willey-overheard-white-house-staff-teaching-hillary-trademark-dont-recall-defense/ (September 3, 2016)

People, Travel, Problem, Time

“Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is afar higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expecting some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 109.

God, Soul, Rage

“Real Christians revel in desperate ventures for Christ, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration.”

C. T. Studd (1860–1931) British cricketer and missionary

The Chocolate Soldier ( text at Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22331)

God

“Conclusion. Then for conclusion, by these interpretative propositions, followeth foure thinges marvelous and notable. First, that the interpretation of every parte of the Revelation, is accessorie or consectarie to other: that is to say, it is so chained and linked together, that every mysterie opens other to the discoverie of the whole. Secondly, that the first halfe of the book is orderly, that is to say, it containeth in order of time the most notable accidents that concerneth Gods Church, from the time of Christs Baptisme successively to the latter day. Thirdly, that every historie prophecied, is limited or dated with his own nŭber of years. Fourthly and last of all, that whatsoever historie is more orderlie and summarlie, than plainly set downe in the first orderlie parte of the booke, the same is repeated, interpreted, or amplified in the last part of the booke: deviding the whole Revelation according to the table following, before we proceed to the principall matter.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

God, Books, History, Time

“If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified: and certainly his justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative; he would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the reward of it. So Christ, our second surety, (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified,) was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials; and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 1 Pet. iii. 18. then he that was manifest in the flesh was justified in the spirit, 1 Tim. iii. 16.; but God, when he justified him in raising him from the dead, did not only release him from his humiliation for sin, and acquit him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done. And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers; for as Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety; so when after this suffering he was raised from the dead, he was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all that should believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle, Rom. iv. 25. “Who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.””

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

And therefore it is that the apostle says, as he does in Rom. viii. 34. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.
Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

Life, Death, God, Law

“The true confidence which is faith in Christ, and the true diffidence which is utter distrust of myself — are identical.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 225.

Faith, Confidence

“He that will deserve the name of a Christian must be such a man as excelleth through the knowledge of Christ and His doctrine; in modesty and righteousness of mind, in constancy of life, in virtuous fortitude, and in maintaining sincere piety toward the one and the only God, who is all in all.”

Eusebius of Caesarea (265–339) Greek church historian

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 103.

Life, God, Knowledge, Sincerity

“Christ has recognised and declared woman's equality with man”

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist

On Women (1890)

“Jesus Christ is, in the noblest and most perfect sense, the realized ideal of humanity.”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 54

Sense, Perfection

“Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow me. This is war, not peace. It is battle declared against the world, the flesh, and the devil. In me said Christ, "ye have peace,"—not in the world; there is no promise of it there.”

Anna Shipton (1815–1901) British religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 535.

War, World, Peace

“Bloodlessness and pain dried within; and blowing of wind and cold coming from without met together in the sweet body of Christ. And these four, — twain without, and twain within — dried the flesh of Christ by process of time. And though this pain was bitter and sharp, it was full long lasting, as to my sight, and painfully dried up all the lively spirits of Christ’s flesh. Thus I saw the sweet flesh dry in seeming by part after part, with marvellous pains. And as long as any spirit had life in Christ’s flesh, so long suffered He pain.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Eighth Revelation, Chapter 16

Life, Pain, Suffering, Time

“When we wrong God, he does not let us go, he makes us pay for our wrongs but through the death of his own son Jesus Christ. When God's people (Jews) wronged him, he weakened them in battle and caused them to be captives in Babylon for 70 years.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Excerpts from an address to Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, 28 July 2005

Death, God, People

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1840s, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841)

Life

“These teachings have been sent to explain the truth as Jesus intended it to be known in the world — not to give a new Christianity, but to give the real Christ-teaching: how to become like Christ, how to resurrect the Eternal Christ within one's Self…”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

Truth, World

“He (Babaji) is not preaching any new religion. He has come to preach the religion, which occurred at the time of Creation, and that is the Sanatan Dharma - the Eternal Religion. He has come to preach the Sanatan Dharma only. We can determine the date from which every religion started. For example, the Muslim religion was started by Mohammed 1400 years ago and this is recorded in their scriptures. Christianity started with birth of Christ, 2000 years ago. Before Christ and Mohammed existed, the world and its people were living. The Sanatan Dharma has been followed for thousands and millions of years and no one is able to trace the date it began. You may try to understand this spontaneous religion this way: the dharma (law or nature) of fire is to burn; the dharma of water is to be wet; the air has to blow. Can one tell on what day the fire started to burn, the water to be wet, and the air to blow? No one can say. Sanatan Dharma is like a great ocean. From that ocean, each country has dug canals according to their needs and purposes. But canals cannot give total satisfaction as the ocean gives complete bliss. The Lord is showing a vision of the Sanatan Dharma, which is like the great ocean, and this is the greatest form of knowledge. Until now, people only had knowledge of their canals. Now the Lord is showing us that we aren't just bubbles in a canal, but rather bubbles in the great ocean. As long as we have individuality, we are seen as bubbles; when we disappear, we are one with the ocean. (Vishnu Dutt Shastriji about Haidakhan Babaji and Sanatan Dharma)”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

25 March 1983
The Teachings of Babaji

People, World, Religion, Law

“The Bible says that he that hath the Son hath life, and He who does not hath the Son does not have life. God is not willing that any should perish. If you are here today and you are not saved, God wants you to be saved. He wants to forgive your sin. He wants to take you to heaven when you die. But just like it was in the days of Noah, the Bible says, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes back. They were eating and drinking and marrying, and giving in marriage. They don't care - we have the same thing today. Until the Flood came and took them all away. So shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Jesus is coming very soon. We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. I recommend that you get busy and say, "God, use me for something. I want to persuade somebody to go to heaven."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

Life, Men, God, Marriage

“The study of every thing that stands connected with the death of Christ, whether it be in the types of the ceremonial law, the predictions of the prophets, the narratives of the Gospels, the doctrines of the epistles, or the sublime vision of the Apocalypse, this is the food of the soul, the manna from heaven, the bread of life. This is "meat indeed" and "drink indeed."”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 69.

Life, Death, Law, Food

“The modern attempt to reduce Jesus to the level of political reformer, and the church to the same level, is a denial of Christ’s true Kingship.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Writings, The Mediator: Christ or the Church? The Witness of Jesus Christ (n. d.)

“Now, this… Mountain signified the Church of the living God; the Sun that shone thereon, the comfortable shining of his merciful Face on them that were therein; the Wall, I thought, was the Word, that did make separation between the Christians and the World; and the Gap which was in this Wall, I thought was Jesus Christ, who is the way to God the Father. But forasmuch as the Passage was wonderful narrow… it showed me that none could enter into Life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left this wicked World behind them; for here was only room for Body and Soul, but not for Body and Soul, and Sin.”

John Bunyan book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)

Life, God, World, Way

“The thief upon the cross and the beloved John were alike complete in Christ.”

Anna Shipton (1815–1901) British religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 362.

“Christ puts Himself at the head of the mystic march of the generations; and. like the mysterious aneel that Joshua saw in the plain by Jericho, makes the lofty claim, "Nay, but as the captain of the Lord's host am I come up."”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 80.

“There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 105.

“I never yet have heard of a good man having fallen when he was trying to do Christ's will and trusting on Christ's help. Every fall without one exception came from venturing upon sinful ground or from venturing upon self-support.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 21.

Support, Help

“Christ, addressing Himself to the labourers of His time, proclaimed for the first time the worthiness both in material and a spiritual sense of all work.”

Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) British economist

Source: A History of Economic Thought (1939), Chapter I, The Beginnings, p. 41 ( See also.. 1 Corinthians 3 - 9.. KJV )

Sense, Time

“The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 121 (8 May 1838)
1830s

Religion

“To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that Christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as against the wish and will of kings, nothing against the frightful system of human slavery—almost universal in his time. What he did not say is altogether more wonderful than what he did say. It is marvelous that he said nothing upon the subject of intemperance, nothing about education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature, nothing about art. He said nothing in favor of the home, except to offer a reward to those who would desert their wives and families.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

People, Education, Family, Art

“When rowan leaves are dank and rusting
And rowan berries red as blood,
When in my palm the hangman's thrusting
The final nail with bony thud,
When, over the foul flooding river,
Upon the wet grey height, I toss
Before my land's grim looks, and shiver
As I swing here upon the cross,
Then, through the blood and weeping, stretches
My dying sight to space remote;
I see upon the river’s reaches
Christ sailing to me in a boat.”

Alexander Blok (1880–1921) poet

"Autumn Love" (1907); translation from C. M. Bowra (ed.) A Book of Russian Verse (London: Macmillan, 1943) p. 99.

“My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

Source: 1990s, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (1999), p. 206

“The civil state is bound before God to take off that bond and yoke of soul oppression, and to proclaim free and impartial liberty to all the people of the three nations to choose and maintain what worship and ministry their souls and consciences are persuaded of; which act, as it will prove an act of mercy and righteousness to the enslaved nations, so is it of a binding force to engage the whole and every interest and conscience to preserve the common freedom and peace; however, an act most suiting with the piety and Christianity of the Holy Testament of Christ Jesus.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)

God, People, Peace, Soul

“Thus I saw how Christ hath compassion on us for the cause of sin.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 28

“The activity will prove to be "peculiar" by leading the active person into Christ's own passion. This activity itself is perpetual suffering and enduring. In it, Christ is suffered by his disciple. If this is not the case, it is not the activity Jesus intended. In this way, the "extraordinary" is the fulfilling of the law, the keeping of the commandments.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Encountering the Extraordinary, p. 1

Law, Way, Suffering, Passion

“God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.”

James G. Watt (1938) United States Secretary of the Interior

Attributed in Setting the Captives Free (1990) by Austin Miles, and widely repeated after appearing in "The Godly Must Be Crazy", by Glenn Scherer in Grist magazine (28 October 2004) http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html. Grist afterwards retracted and apologized for Scherer's comment, noting that the quotation appears nowhere in Watt's Congressional testimony or any other source it could find. Watt has responded: : I never said it. Never believed it. Never even thought it. I know no Christian who believes or preaches such error. The Bible commands conservation — that we as Christians be careful stewards of the land and resources entrusted to us by the Creator. Misattributed

God, Tree