Quotes About Christianity

It is important to emphasize that the Gospel centers in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 Paul sums up its message in three historical facts: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. . . . He was buried . . . He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

We may owe Superman and E.T. to Jewish film directors, but there's no doubting that it's the Christian story we're being told.)

One must bear in mind that the concept of God as a judge, which is part of Christian and Islamic mythology, is absent in Hindu mythology

In most parts of the world, a new idea suppresses and wipes out the old idea, but in India, thanks to the abstract nature of Vedic ideas, new worldviews—be they native ones like Buddhism or Bhakti or foreign ones like Islam and Christianity—simply helped reaffirm the Vedic way in different ways.

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.

The whole message of the Christian scripture is based in the idea of metanoia, the change of heart that happens when we meet God face-to-face. Even a cursory knowledge of history reveals that Christianity is a religion about change. The Christian faith always changes--even when some of its adherents claim that it does not.

But some contemporary believers, such as Lisa Domke, a pastor and mother in Seattle, ground their identity in Christ's love but a love that goes beyond sentiment or feeling. "I say that I am someone seeking to live in the world with love and humility," Lisa reports, "following God in the way of Jesus." Love is the active practice of Christian virtue. As Sky, a Seattle Baptist, relates, "Children know that love is behavior, not romantic words.

While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger. Unlike almost every other contested idea in early Christianity, including the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, the unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue.

Whereas militant Christianity triumphs over all, generative Christianity transforms the world through humble service to all. It is not about victory; it is about following Christ in order to seed human community with grace.

While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger.

When someone asks me what kind of Christian I am," says Brent Bill, a Quaker writer, "I say I'm a bad one." He goes on to say, "I've got the belief part down pretty well, I think. It's in the practice of my belief in everyday life where I often miss the mark." Finally, he states, "I see myself as a pilgrim—traveling the faith path to the destination of being a good Christian—and into the eternal presence of God.

The contemplative tradition has most deeply influenced my spiritual growth and my identity. My Christian action flows from my life of prayer." Aaron McCarroll Gallegos agrees: "An authentic prayer life has become one of the most important Christian practices for me…. Without a vital inner spiritual life, I believe it is almost certain that one will lose their way.

Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation. By followers enacting Jesus's teachings, Christianity changed and improved the lives of its adherents and served as a practical spiritual pathway. This way—and earliest Christians were called "the People of the Way"—bettered existence for countless ancient believers.

Thus Christianity becomes a story of accumulated human experience of God that reveals a certain kind of wisdom in the world: To love God and love one's neighbor constitutes the good life. Love is, as the apostle Paul wrote, the greatest of all things. Without love we are, as the good apostle said flatly, "nothing" (1 Cor. 13). Without love, Christianity is either a pretty bad joke or a twisted political agenda.

Christians struggled with Jesus's Great Command to love God (devotion) and love their neighbor (ethics).

It is just mortifying to be a Christian, except for the Jesus part. —Anne Lamott

A People's History is not a nostalgia trip. In these pages I hope it is clear that no period of church history is superior to another. Rather, each time unfolds on its own historical merits, as Christians struggle to enact Jesus's command to love God and neighbor in a unique human context.

doubting their faith, and those just hanging on is that church or Christianity has failed them, wounded them, betrayed them, or maybe just bored them—and they do not want to

Christianity succeeded because it "prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations."3 Translated from sociologist-speak, that means Christians did risky, compelling, and good things that helped people.

If you take one lesson and one lesson only from this book, I want it to be this: God doesn't function in a currency of shame. Shame isn't from God, it isn't of God, and it isn't something Christians should engage in. Shame is not nor will it ever be a useful response to a person's experience of the world, especially when it comes to sexual experiences.

For most of its existence, Christianity has been the most intolerant of world faiths, doing its best to eliminate all competitors, with Judaism a qualified exception, for which (thanks to some thoughts from Augustine of Hippo) it found space to serve its own theological and social purposes.

Right down to the seventeenth century, Christian debate about faith and the world involved a debate between two Greek ghosts, Plato and Aristotle, who had never heard the name of Jesus Christ.

I was brought up in the presence of the Bible, and I remember with affection what it was like to hold a dogmatic position on the statements of Christian belief. I would now describe myself as a candid friend of Christianity

My mother was the sweetest lady who ever lived on this planet, but if you tried to tell her that Jesus wasn't a Christian, she would stomp you to death.