Quotes About Power

But it is Hitler to whom the entire world must be grateful tonight for striking at the Soviet Union.

In one of history's great ironies, scientists today know vastly more than their colleagues a century ago, and possess vastly more data-crunching power, but they are much less confident in the prospects for perfect predictability.

At the heart of the gospel is a God who deliberately surrenders to the wild, irresistable power of love.

C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

Jesus] invoked a different kind of power: love, not coercion.

God does not seem impressed by size or power or wealth. Faith is what he wants, and the heroes who emerge are heroes of faith, not strength or wealth.

Be careful," warned Nietzsche, "lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon." I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis once said that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

A philosophy may explain difficult things, but has no power to change them. The gospel, the story of Jesus' life, promises change.

Perhaps the reason politics has proved such a snare for the church is that power rarely coexists with love. People in power draw up lists of friends and enemies, then reward their friends and punish their enemies. Christians are commanded to love even their enemies.

The Christian knows to serve the weak not because they deserve it but because God extended his love to us when we deserved the opposite. Christ came down from heaven, and whenever his disciples entertained dreams of prestige and power he reminded them that the greatest is the one who serves. The ladder of power reaches up, the ladder of grace reaches down.

Jesus was not crucified for being a good citizen, for being just a little nicer than everyone else. The powers of his day correctly saw him and his followers as subversives because they took orders from a higher power than Rome or Jerusalem. What would a subversive church look like in the modern United States?

The church has allowed itself to get so swept up in political issues that it plays by the rules of power, which are rules of ungrace

culture? As Lesslie Newbigin poses the question, "Can one who goes the way of the Cross sit in the seat of Pilate when it falls vacant?

I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis once said that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist. Those

In a sort of negative proof of the power of prayer, three times God commanded Jeremiah to stop praying; God wanted no alteration in his plans to punish a rebellious nation.

grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations.

El poder consigue todo, menos lo más importante: no puede controlar el amor.

Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

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.

When the church joined with the state, it tended to wield power rather than dispense grace.

sacrificial love is one of the most powerful weapons in the Christian's arsenal of grace.

She did not question God's supernatural power, but how to go about convincing God of her sincerity? Faith wasn't like a muscle that could be enlarged through rehabilitation exercises.

many such episodes it became clear that religion allied too closely to the state leads to the abuse of power. Christian experiments with church-state blending, whether in Geneva under Calvin or in Spain and Latin America under the Inquisition, may have worked for a time but inevitably provoked a backlash against the church, such as that seen in secular Europe today.*

Edward Gibbon said that in ancient Rome all religions were to the people equally true, to the philosophers equally false, and to the government equally useful.