Quotes About Christianity

My point here is that no Jew before Christianity was on the scene ever interpreted such passages as referring to the messiah.

Again, he passed along General Armstrong's words, "What are Christians put into the world for except to do the impossible in the strength of God!

Here is the lesson: Great men and women of God are not exempt from hurt and offense. Instead, enduring the wounds of fellow Christians with mercy and grace seems to be the call of every true saint, and we should not expect it to be any different in our own lives.

Widespread criticisms of jihad in Islam and the so-called sword verses in the Quran have unearthed for fair-minded Christians difficult questions about Christianity's own traditions of holy war and 'texts of terror.' Like Hinduism's Mahabharata epic, the Bible devotes entire books to war and rumors thereof. Unlike the Quran, however, it contains hardly any rules for how to conduct a just war.

Like all religious people, Christians repress, remember, and retell their core stories selectively. They emphasize this episode at the expense of that episode, in keeping with their own biases and the preoccupations of their times.

While I do not believe we are not witnessing a clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam, it is a fantasy to imagine that the world's two largest religions are in any meaningful sense the same, or that interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims will magically bridge the gap.

The True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, the Pillar of the Flogging, the Holy Sponge, the Holy Lance, the Nails, and the Holy Blood. The Arma Christi. Weapons of Christ. Instruments of passion.

You ought to live your life with such freedom and joy that uptight Christians will doubt your salvation.

If you've been a Christian very long, you may be wondering why I left out the guilt, the condemnation, and the promises to get better and better in every way, every day. I left them out because they simply aren't in the Bible.

I find myself laughing a lot. Every time I remember that I'm forgiven and loved (that I have unlimited free sins and blank checks), I get the giggles. In fact, Christians are the only people on earth who have something significant to laugh about.

If Jesus said we're free, we ought to accept his declaration at face value and run with it. It ought to help us define ourselves. But it doesn't. Christians will do almost anything to get away from the simple meaning of the word and the wonderful experience of freedom.

Until a Christian struggles with the issue of freedom, he or she will remain frightened, obsessive, and bound.

Whenever a new Christian comes into the church, I wince a bit, because I'm afraid that they will get the "religion disease," that the "church virus" will kill off the joy and freedom Jesus purchased on the cross to give them.

Forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It's not about getting better, becoming more religious, or following the rules so God will love you. It's all about forgiveness, dummy! Everything else is secondary. If we don't keep the main thing the main thing, then everything else will turn sour on us.

Do you want to know what God is like? Then look at Jesus. If you want to know how God reacts to people, look at how Jesus reacted to people. If you want to know what God thinks, how he acts and who he is, don't get with a group of people and vote on it. One doesn't discover divine truth with an election. If you want to know the truth about God, don't get a book on theology, listen to a preacher, or even read a book like this one. For God's sake, go to Jesus.

There really is something neurotic about Christians who spend most of their time trying desperately to please a God who is already very pleased. They don't have any freedom, and they sometimes take away the freedom of others.

Evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith but then add a man-made waiver that you have to work as hard as you can can meet middle-class behavioral patterns to hang onto it.

The zero-sum nature of the medieval economy was reinforced by a Christian ideology that was hostile to any commercial practice or technological innovation that might eke more wealth out of a given stock of physical resources.

One of our greatest challenges as Christians is to be driven by the love of Christ rather than constantly seeking after God's comfort.

Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service.

It is not the deed we do Though the deed be never so fair, But the love that the dear Lord looketh for, Hidden with lovely care In the heart of the deed so fair.

Don't be troubled if you don't feel the love of God in yourself, but thing about the Lord, that He is merciful, and guard yourself from sins, and the grace of God will teach you.

If you say the Holy Rosary every day, with a spirit of faith and love, our Lady will make sure she leads you very far along her Son's path.

Pure Christian love is not derived from the merit of the object.