Quotes About Belief

The storm laid bare an unmistakable truth. More and more Christians have decided that the only way to reconquer America is through service. The faith no longer travels by the word. It moves by the deed.

We have not, it seems, the power to abstain from worship. Instead, we swallow the sweet poison, substituting lesser gods for God.

AS ANDREW GREELEY SAID, If one wishes to eliminate uncertainty, tension, confusion and disorder from one's life, there is no point  in getting mixed up either with Yahweh or with Jesus of Nazareth.7-9 I grew up expecting that a relationship with God would bring order, certainty, and a calm rationality to life. Instead, I have discovered that living in faith involves much dynamic tension.

History is a test of faith, and the correct response to that test is persistent prayer.

We cannot simply pray and then wait for God to do the rest.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

Can we live now "as if" God is loving, gracious, merciful, and all-powerful, even while the blinders of time are obscuring our vision? The

What is faith, after all, but believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse

La fidelidad implica aprender a confiar que, más allá del perímetro de la oscuridad, Dios aún reina y no nos ha abandonado, no importa lo que parezca.

G. K. Chesterton once wrote, "All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe.

Stanley Hauerwas, named "America's best theologian" by Time magazine, summed up the problem: "I have come to think that the challenge confronting Christians is not that we do not believe what we say, though that can be a problem, but that what we say we believe does not seem to make any difference for either the church or the world." When a poll of college students asked

En cambio, Jesucristo nunca obligó a nadie a creer en él. Prefería actuar por medio de la atracción, sacando a los humanos de sí mismos para atraerlos hacia él.

Si Dios se dedicara a enviar rayos como respuesta a las malas doctrinas, nuestro planeta brillaría como un árbol navideño.

Can we live now "as if " God is loving, gracious, merciful, and all-powerful, even while the blinders of time are obscuring our vision? The prophets proclaim that history will be determined not by the past or present, but by the future.

Andy Rooney, the late commentator on the 60 Minutes television show, once said, "I've decided I'm against abortion. I think it's murder. But I have a dilemma in that I much prefer the pro-choice to the pro-life people. I'd much rather eat dinner with a group of the former.

I can never figure out how to have a friendly conversation with someone when my main point is that they are going to Hell.

The worst moment for the atheist is

My anger about pain has melted mostly for one reason: I have come to know God. He has given me joy and love and happiness and goodness. They have come in unexpected flashes, in the midst of my confused, imperfect world, but they have been enough to convince me that my God is worthy of trust. Knowing him is worth all enduring.

if we do not believe that, and if our Christian hope, tempered by sophistication, does not allow us to offer that truth to a dying, convulsing world then we are indeed, as the apostle Paul said, of all men most miserable.

Unless we can grasp our own beliefs as truly good news, we cannot easily communicate them to a thirsty world.

A skeptical world judges the truth of what we say by the proof of how we live. Today's activists may be the best evangelists.

positioned myself. I once described the people I tend to hear from as "borderlanders," those caught in a no-person's-land between faith and disbelief. Some approach the church cautiously, attracted to Jesus but turned off by his followers. Some have fled the church due to bad experiences, yet still yearn for the consolation they felt there. I've spent time in the borderlands myself and want to honor those wandering on the edges, the misfits.

I've yet to meet someone who found their way to faith by being criticized.

I leave in God's hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy.