quotations about Christianity
It took time for the church to come to terms with the ignominy of the cross. Church fathers forbade its depiction in art until the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine.... Now, though, the symbol is everywhere: artists beat gold into the shape of the Roman execution device, baseball players cross themselves before batting, and cancy confectioners even make chocolate crosses for the faithful to eat during Holy Week. Strange as it may seem, Christianity has become a religion of the cross--the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, in modern terms.
PHILIP YANCEY
The Jesus I Never Knew
Nothing has so stripped Christianity of its power, as the conversion of it into a state machine, as the polluting touch of the politician, who has caused it to be preached to the lower ranks, and to be professed by the higher, in order that the old polity, with its inveterate abuses, may stand fast, and that the accumulation of property in a few hands may be undisturbed. Religion, taught for such ends, is among the worst foes of social progress.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Christianity is simply the ideal form of manhood represented to us by Jesus Christ.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Christians should be like a flower store: the odor of sanctity should betray them wherever they are.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
To be the instrument of converting a single soul, is so great a blessing and honor, that if there were no other way to accomplish it, any true Christian would be willing to lay down his life.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
The Revival and Its Lessons
It is the duty of Christians to make religion lovely; he who makes religion unlovely is more an infidel than if he simply denied the doctrines of Christianity. He is a worm at the core, and not a worm on the leaf.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
You see, we're all born sinful except for Jesus who was perfect, of course. And he was sent to save us. But how could he save us unless we're sinning? So we have to go on sinning in order to be saved and go to Heaven. That's how Christianity works. That's why it suits so many people.
CHARLIE MCMANUS
Nuns on the Run
For many centuries after the establishment of Christianity, mankind became more barbarous, ignorant, and miserable than before, instead of assisting the human mind in its progress to improvement, that system completely retarded it; a gloomy superstition, which sprung out of these gospels, cramped its energies, and fettered its exertions; instead of guiding society to freedom, peace, and happiness, there was founded on the authority of these writings a system of the most horrible and debasing oppression.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
My experience is, that Christianity dispels more mystery than it involves. With Christianity, it is twilight in the world; without it, night. Christianity does not finish the statue--that is heaven's work; but it "rough-hews" all things--truth, the mind, the soul.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
The way to begin a Christian life is not to study theology. Piety before theology. Right living will produce right thinking. Yet many men, when their consciences are aroused, run for catechisms, and commentaries, and systems. They do not mean to be shallow Christians. They intend to be thorough, if they enter upon the Christian life at all. Now, theologies are well in their place; but repentance and love must come before all other experiences. First a cure for your sin-sick soul, and then theologies. Suppose a man were taken with the cholera, and, instead of sending for a physician, he should send to a bookstore, and buy all the books which have been written on the human system, and, while the disease was working in his vitals, he should say, "I'll not put myself in the hands of any of these doctors. I shall probe this thing to the bottom." Would it not be better for him first to be cured of the cholera?
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The real difficulty with thousands in the present day is not that Christianity has been found wanting, but that it has never been seriously tried.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
Christians are like vases, they must pass through the fire ere they can shine. The graces which are to be their everlasting beauty and glory must be burned in.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Christianity is a system of life communicated from God to the soul of man, embodied in Jesus Christ, who is himself the essential revelation.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us--a crucified God--must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.
JOHN PIPER
Don't Waste Your Life
Indeed, for us alone, who are called the enemies of the Christian religion, for us alone it is reserved, and even made the highest duty ... really to exercise love, this highest commandment of Christ and this only way to true Christianity.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"The Reaction in Germany"
Religion is not the tame and sleepy thing which some suppose. This misapprehension is derived partly from erroneous views of doctrine, but yet more from the examples of actual Christianity among us, which fall so far short of the biblical standard.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
Faith
I consider Western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity.
MAHATMA GANDHI
The Message of Jesus Christ
CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
JAMES MADISON
"Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments"
Christianity is haunted by the theory of a God with a craving for bloody sacrifices.
J.B.S. HALDANE
Possible Worlds and Other Papers