Few of us know the experience of being loved for being just who we are.

If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus' gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.

Belief, like love, must be voluntary.

When our motivation to obey becomes an oppressive pressure to do the right thing, to do what's expected of us as Christians, then it breeds serious problems. Obedience that is only seen as rule-keeping ruins the love relationship between us and the Lord. Why? Even though the rules may be biblically based, we will end up obeying them rather than God. Concern with the letter of the law will cause us to lose the spirit of love.

Love as content is in the habit of limiting formal patterns. The same goes for faith. After all, there are only so many adequate manifestations for truly strong sentiments; which, in the end, is what explains rituals.

Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the church upon every aspect of human life.

Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.

Christianity is not some ideal toward which we ought always to strive even though the ideal is out of reach. Christianity is not a series of slogans that sum up our beliefs.

You can't have a belief system on Sunday and not live it the other six days.

Jesus worked by changing the heart, not by legislating. Legislation can only force compliance. It can never produce the love necessary to change an attitude. Jesus

It is evident that immunity to any transcendent voice and disregard of neighbor leads finally to the disappearance of passion. And where passion disappears there will not be any serious humanizing energy.

Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.