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Christianity Quotes

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Christianity Quotes

“The cumulative effect of the Romantic theory of creativity, as played out in the context of belief in the virtue of the avant-garde, is that while the art world has effectively freed itself from the tyranny of artistic tradition and its historic patronage system, it has ended up inhabiting an autonomous but perceived irrelevance.”

“It is short-sighted, not to say stupid, in the correct desire to be relevant as Christian artists in an unchristian age, to pick up the secular fashion of the immediate generation before us and immerse oneself in that as your tradition. That's why Christian artists so often seem to be a generation late.”

“Perhaps the greatest contribution that those of us who come from a Christian tradition can make is to throw out the old just-war theory, embrace the nonviolence of Jesus, refuse to kill one another, and truly follow his commandment to "love our enemies.”

“The philanthropic tradition is older than democracy, older than Christianity, and older than higher education. It gives form and purpose to personal and social life that cannot be provided by the self-interest of economic enterprise or required by the mandate of political institutions.”

“In 325 A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to unify Rome under a single religion ... Historians still marvel at the brilliance with which Constantine converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagan symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties.”

“Don't worry about wearing the sign; be the sign. You don't have to wear a sandwich board saying, "I am religious and spiritual and know what you should do." You do have to be the best of the mystical presence that your tradition brings. Certainly in Christianity, that means that you begin to go through life putting on the mind of Jesus, trying to see the world as Jesus saw the world.”

“I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they began to bring the very best of each tradition into one tradition. He hoped that Christianity would be the one religion that finally incorporated the values of Hinduism and Buddhism, and enriched itself with them.”

“Tolerance has been a very important feature of Christianity from its very roots, despite all the other things that have gone on since. And that, I think, must be the global perspective. Tolerance implies more than saying, "Well, let the Muslims go on with what they are doing." It also means trying to learn something from them and adding that to your own tradition. That is the attitude I think needs to inform the global citizen of the future.”

“There are hard texts in each tradition which we must confront and ask ourselves, 'Can we reinterpret those texts to allow us to live peaceably, and respectfully, with people of other faiths?' That is a job only Jews can do for Judaism, only Christians can do for Christianity, and only Muslims can do for Islam. But sometimes the sight of someone in one faith wrestling with that faith can empower you to wrestle with another faith.”

“I traveled around America and then at nineteen, went to Europe and hitchhiked from London to the Himalayas in India. I studied various forms of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and in India, various forms of Buddhism and Hinduism. Eventually, I came to the path of unconditional love and devotion to the one God, who in our tradition we call Krishna. I met my guru and became a swami. This allowed me to share that gift, which I consider to be a very deep universal expression of compassion.”

“Historically the customs and traditions of day-to-day life in Africa have been dismissed by Western cultural anthropologists as primitive, chaotic, pagan activities that should be replaced by Christianity, the only civilized religion. The West has also long assumed that it should convert tribal cultures to literacy, which is to say an entirely different way of looking at the world, of living in the world. Most Africans who have achieved a comfortable Western lifestyle are Christian. Why? Because it comes with the package: Christian-ity, literacy, and a material lifestyle all come together.”

“I am an Episcopalian who takes the faith of my fathers seriously, and I would, I think, be disheartened if my own young children were to turn away from the church when they grow up. I am also a critic of Christianity, if by critic one means an observer who brings historical and literary judgment to bear on the texts and traditions of the church.”

“Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.”

“The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition, are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long. . . . There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.”

“"Both Christianity and Islam are logocentric," he told his students, "meaning they are focused on the Word. In Christian tradition, the Word became flesh in the book of John: 'And the Word was made flesh, and He dwelt among us. 'Therefore, it was acceptable to depict the Word as having a human form. In Islamic tradition, however, the Word did not become flesh, and therefore the Word needs to remain in the form of a word … in most cases, calligraphic renderings of the names of the holy figures of Islam."”

“The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the Black man in white Christian hands has not grown violent. It is a miracle that twenty-two million Black people have not risen up against their oppressors in which they would have been justified by all moral criteria and even by the democratic traditions.”