“When we think of the height of God's infinity we should not despair of His compassion reaching us from such a height; and when we recall the infinite depth of our fall through sin we should not refuse to believe that the virtue which has been killed in us will rise again. For God can accomplish both these things: He can come down and illumine our intellect with spiritual knowledge, and He can raise up the virtue within us and exalt it with Himself through works of righteousness.” ThinkingShouldBelieveHas BeensChristianSpiritualFallSinCompassionVirtueDespairInfiniteDown AndRaisesDepthRefuseAccomplishIntellectHeightReachingOrthodoxRighteousnessInfinityRecallsRaise UpSpiritual Knowledge Author:Maximus the Confessor
“How can it be other than right to worship the Body of the Lord, all-holy and all-reverend as it is, announced as it was by the archangel Gabriel, formed by the Holy Spirit, and made the Vesture of the Word? It was at any rate a bodily hand that the Word stretched out to raise her that was sick of a fever (Mk. 1:31): a human voice that He uttered to raise Lazarus - the dead (Jn. 11:43); and, once again, stretching out His hands upon the Cross, He overthrew the prince of the power of the air, that now works (Eph. 2:2) in the sons of disobedience, and made the way clear for us into the heavens.” WayHumansMadeBodyHandsChristianSpiritHeavenVoiceLordClearAirSonHolyWorshipCrossesSickRaisesRateHoly SpiritOrthodoxDisobedienceFeverOrthodox ChristianStretchingGabrielArchangelHuman VoiceReverendsLazarus Author:John of Kronstadt
“The Christian ethic did not raise the worth of female life much above the Jewish: nor did the clinical ethic raise it much above the clerical. This is why most of those identified as witches by male inquisitors were women; and why most of those diagnosed as hysterics by male psychiatrists were also women.” ChristianEthicsFemaleRaisesMalesWitchPsychiatristClinicalsChristian Ethics Book:The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement
“Biblical higher criticism is preserved in the particular enclave of academic Christian scholarship and is thought to be too unfruitful to share with the average pew-sitter, for it raises more questions than the church can adequately answer. So the leaders of the church would protect the simple believers from concepts they were not trained to understand. In this way that ever-widening gap between academic Christians and the average pew-sitter made its first appearance.” WayFirstsMadeChristianReligionChurchSimpleAnswersLeaderShareParticularHigherProtectConceptsCriticismRaisesAverageAppearanceBelieverGapsAcademicBiblicalScholarship Author:John Shelby Spong
“The world expects of Christians that they will raise their voices so loudly and clearly and so formulate their protest that not even the simplest man can have the slightest doubt about what they are saying. Further, the world expects of Christians that they will eschew all fuzzy abstractions and plant themselves squarely in front of the bloody face of history. We stand in need of folk who have determined to speak directly and unmistakably and come what may, to stand by what they have said.” MenWorldNeedsMaySaidChristianFacesSpeakVoiceReligiousDoubtFrontsRaisesPlantFolksDeterminedProtestBloodyAbstractionSimplestFuzzy Author:Albert Camus