“It was through looking at churches that I came to believe in the reason churches were built.”

The Best of Betjeman, John Guest, Penguin Modern Classics, 1985. Written in 1948. (Blisland)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 11, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was through looking at churches that I came to believe in the reason churches were built." by John Betjeman?
John Betjeman photo
John Betjeman 30
English poet, writer and broadcaster 1906–1984

Related quotes

Thomas Paine photo
William Cowper photo

“Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.”

Source: Retirement (1782), Line 688.

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation — not from God — but from the church.”

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

Heretics and Heresies (1874)
Context: Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation — not from God — but from the church. Had the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. It might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think or investigate in order to forget. Without heresy there could have been no progress.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“All church leaders agreed that the fears of the church members were not unfounded.”

Sebastian Tudu (1967) Roman catholic Bishop

Bangladeshi Christians Skip Traditional Christmas Midnight Mass https://www.voanews.com/east-asia/bangladeshi-christians-skip-traditional-christmas-midnight-mass (December 24, 2015)

John F. Kennedy photo

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote — where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference — and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
1960, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Letter to his son, Webb Hayes (26 February 1875)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Chen Chien-jen photo

“I firmly believe that the provisional agreement between the Vatican and (mainland) China on the appointment of bishops will help harmonize the Universal Church and the Catholic Church in (mainland) China.”

Chen Chien-jen (1951) Vice President of the Republic of China, Taiwanese epidemiologist and academic

Chen Chien-jen (2019) cited in " Holy See values relations with Taiwan: Vice President Chen http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201910120004.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 12 October 2019.

Related topics