Quotes About Churches

For years, I was quite a militant atheist. I wanted to burn down all the churches or turn them into second-hand record emporiums.

At Cincinnati, where we arrived about dawn, I asked the Traveller's Aid girl the name of some Catholic churches, and got in a taxi to go to St. Francis Xavier's, where

Churches and preachers are some of the most valuable political operatives in America today, and they work mostly (though not exclusively) on the side of the Republican party. Since churches are subsidized with public money through tax deductions and other tax advantages, one could say that the United States now has a publicly subsidized political party that promotes an agenda of religious nationalism.

Contrary to popular myth, many representatives of the churches of the North went along with Dabney's program.

Since churches are subsidized with public money through tax deductions and other tax advantages, one could say that the United States now has a publicly subsidized political party that promotes an agenda of religious nationalism.

In order to achieve political unity around abortion, the leaders of the emerging Christian nationalist movement understood, it was also necessary to change the deep frame of American religion. So that is what they set out to do. The modern pro-life religion that dominates America's conservative churches and undergirds a variety of their denominations is a political creation.

But it is daily tasks, daily acts of love and worship that serve to remind us that the religion is not strictly an intellectual pursuit, and these days it is easy to lose sight of that as, like our society itself, churches are becoming more politicized and polarized. Christian faith is a way of life, not an impregnable fortress made up of ideas; not a philosophy; not a grocery list of beliefs.

I think if Jesus was here teaching in the flesh again, he'd be turning over tables, clearing out churches, and raising some serious ruckus over how we are not only missing the point but are continuing to damage far too many people in the name of God.

She wrote to her bishop, pointing out that the fever was spread in places where crowds gathered, and begging him to temporarily close the churches. Bishop Fabre refused, stating that to close the churches would be to laugh at God. The bishop urged his flock to church, telling them that united prayer was more powerful than prayer in isolation.

This informal "pre-exclusion" is probably the more powerful and widely exerted form in many churches. It is in my denomination. As the divorced and remarried don't seek communion at a Roman Catholic parish, gays and lesbians don't seek to participate in most evangelical churches.

Churches that muzzle God's servant never prosper. Spiritual blessings are withheld from them and financial blessings are withheld from them because they're in violation of God's Word.

Instead of tinkering with style, for better or worse, churches need to deal, in a serious way, with the content of their teaching. Specifically, they need to find effective ways to rescue people from their life-and-death spiritual problems, particularly those that are characteristic of our age.

Today's churchless adults are not remarkably less favorable toward churches in their community; if anything, there is simply a growing "yawn

Today's unchurched are more likely to say they are simply not sure, reflecting their disinterest in churches generally, or are more likely to say they would prefer attending some activity other than the Sunday service.

1. Churches seem restrictive and overprotective. Self-expression has become one of the foundations of our postmodern culture. There is less concern about truth than about freedom to express feelings, ideas, and experiences. The demand for expressive liberty has certainly threaded its way into the realm of spirituality, as well—which poses a problem for many churches, since many young adults say their experience of church feels stifling, fear-based, and risk-averse.

These new times require new strategies for making faith real in people's lives. Nothing drives home the need for such innovation as attempting to connect (or reconnect) with the de-churched. Their dismissal of Christian churches is not mean-spirited; it simply reflects the firsthand experiences that led them to conclude churches are ill-equipped to support the flourishing life they hope for.

All this data leads us to a direct examination of the reasons the unchurched avoid Christian churches. The biggest issue is a perceived lack of value.

If you consider how most churches deliver content—appointing one person as the authority and encouraging everyone else to sit (consume) quietly while he or she speaks—it is easy to see how that delivery system may come into conflict with changing cultural expectations.

The churches must learn humility as well as teach it.

That slavery had been sanctioned by God, as had the war itself, remained a bedrock position of the churches, the preachers, and the laity.

I think our failure in the production of good town churches of distinctive character must have struck you often, as it has me, when contrasted with our comparative success in country churches.

We may conclude that a moderate futurist interpretation understands the seven letters to be addressed to seven historical churches that are representative of the entire church. The seals represent the forces in history, however long it lasts, by which God works out his redemptive and judicial purposes in history leading up to the end. The events beginning with chapter 7 lie in the future and will attend the final disposition of the divine will for human history.

Paul also lists one of the gifts of the Spirit as "administration" (1 Cor. 12:28). The word literally means "steersman," "helmsman," and must refer to the gift of leadership in the churches, "a true director of its order and therefore of its life.

There are eternal bonds which are made in registry offices and in churches, there are eternal bonds which are made in other and stranger and more terrible ways.