Quotes About Inclusivity

When I look into the crowd, I see young and old, black and white - it's amazing that I'm able to connect with so many different kinds of people.

All doors are open to the believer. It is the lesson of the Samaritan woman at the well. In my sleepy state it occurred to me that if the well was a portal out, there must also be a portal in. There

It can't be a mob if it comes with ukuleles.

Existence was bigger than just life. It was everyone's life all together, and even if you lived in Buffalo, New York and had never been more than ten miles from home, you were part of the puzzle, too. It didn't matter how small your life was.

Due artisti nella stessa casa potrebbero essere troppi. Qualcuno deve occuparsi dell'aspetto pratico delle cose, eh, Willie? Ci vuole gente di tutti i tipi per fare il mondo.

Jeder hat Freundlichkeit verdient, sagte ich. Egal wer.

You either a poet or a homosexual." "Oh, shit, that's fucked up. Why can't I be both?

William Seymour, a key figure in the Azusa Street revivals that birthed the modern Pentecostal movement, came to believe, according to Harvey Cox, that "the truest sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit was not speaking in tongues but the demise of racial barriers between Christians.."Z6

though the Western world has dominated Christianity for much of Christian history, Christianity is now primarily a nonwhite, non-Western, nonwealthy religion.

But in virtually all societies with more inclusive voting systems, single-issue anti-immigrant parties now attract a remarkably high share of the vote. Far from forcing sane debate on immigration policy by the mainstream parties, the emergence of extremists has further frightened them away from the issue. Either you regard this outcome as a shocking condemnation of ordinary people, or as a shocking condemnation of the mainstream political parties: I view it as the latter.

The most relaxing word in our vocabulary is 'we'. Imagine being able to say 'we'. Most people are in no position to say 'we'.

any Christian theologian who proposes a theology of religions but who doesn't know much about any other religion than her/his own should be regarded as highly suspicious, if not dangerous.

And yet, and yet, if my belief in Jesus as the only Son of God requires me, explicitly or implicitly, to denigrate or subordinate other religious figures and religions, then such a belief becomes a clot in the free and life-giving flow of my faith's circulatory system. I'm sorry. It just does.

I always hated high-school shows and high-school movies, because they were always about the cool kids. It was always about dating and sex, and all the popular kids, and the good-looking kids. And the nerds were super-nerdy cartoons, with tape on their glasses. I never saw 'my people' portrayed accurately.

Women's humor seems to be a little more supportive. It's just kind of trying to make the other one laugh through funny voices and kind of talking about other people. I respond to that. I feel less like I'm going to get beat up in a room full of women than I do in a room full of guys.

The philosophic aim of education must be to get each one out of his isolated class and into the one humanity. Prudence and responsibility are not middle-class virtues but human virtues.

The pantheist "God" is the community of all beings. It is not a He, or a She, or an It. It is a "We," and a we in the broadest and most inclusive sense, embracing everything from rocks and algae, through butterflies and humans, to suns and planets.

The most attractive people are those who make others feel attractive. Attractiveness requires an other focus rather than a self-obsession.

Maybe it's wrong-footed trying to fit people into the world, rather than trying to make the world a better place for people. [as quoted in "Brain Gain" by Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 4/27/09 issue]

When I think of how Jesus loved people, the word "cherish" comes to mind. When we cherish someone, we combine looking and compassion—we notice and care for that person. We don't shut him or her out.

I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.

It is most important for the practice of the Christian ministry, especially in its missionary activities toward those both within and without the Christian culture, to consider pagans, humanists, and Jews as members of the latent Spiritual Community and not as complete strangers who are invited into the Spiritual Community from outside. This insight serves as a powerful weapon against ecclesiastical and hierarchical arrogance.

I emphasize self-esteem, self-confidence, and dignity, not as an ideal, but as a real test of community organization. Without leadership development, community organizations do not have staying power.

What makes community organizing especially attractive is the faith it places in the ability of the poor to make decisions for themselves.