Quotes from Robert McAfee Brown

True patriotism is not worship of our nation but rather, in the light of our worship of the God of justice, to conform our nation's ways of justice.

True patriotism is not worship of our nation but rather, in the light of our worship of the God of justice, to conform our nation's ways of justice.

One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.

How does one keep from "growing old inside"? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are dispensable.

The theory of dependence will take the wrong path and lead to deception if the analysis is not put within the framework of the worldwide class struggle.

The denunciation of injustice implies the rejection of the use of Christianity to legitimize the established order.

There are not two histories, one profane and one sacred, 'juxtaposed' or 'closely linked.' Rather there is only one human destiny.

The God of Exodus is the God of history and of political liberation more than he is the God of nature.

the Exodus from Egypt, the home of the sacred monarchy, reinforces this idea: it is the 'desacralization' of social praxis. . . . In Egypt, work is alienated and, far from building a just society, contributes rather to increasing injustice and to widening the gap between exploiters and exploited.

Other religions think in terms of cosmos and nature; Christianity, rooted in Biblical sources, thinks in terms of history.

not he whom I find in my path, but rather he in whose path I place myself, he whom I approach and actively seek.

But there is one thing that is privileged to be a paradoxical sign of God, in relation to which men are able to manifest their deepest commitment — our Neighbor. The sacrament of our Neighbor!

History is no longer, as it was for the Greeks, an anamnesis , a remembrance. Ir is rather a thrust into the future.

The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture.

Prayer for many is like a foreign land. When we go there, we go as tourists. Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place. Like most tourists, we therefore move on before too long and go somewhere else.