Quotes about Struggle

Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.

How to reconcile the gospel message of liberation with the reality of black oppression.

To be black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are." To become black is like what Jesus told Nicodemus, that he must be "born again," that is, "born of water and Spirit" (John 3), the Black Spirit of liberation.

Freedom means taking sides in a crisis situation, when a society is divided into oppressed and oppressors. In this situation we are not permitted the luxury of being on neither side by making a decision that only involves the self.

Faith is born out of suffering, and suffering is faith's most powerful contradiction. This is the Christian dilemma. The only meaningful Christian response is to resist unjust suffering and to accept the painful consequence of that resistance.

Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God.

Unfortunately, many young believers - and some older ones, too - do not know that there will be times in every person's life when circumstances don't add up - when God doesn't appear to make sense. This aspect of the Christian faith is not well advertised.

There is too much unhappiness in football, no?

Everybody has unhappiness.

I was such a sullen, angry, sad kid. I'm sure there are writers who have had happy childhoods, but what are you going to write about? No ghosts, no fear. I'm very happy that I had an unhappy and uncomfortable childhood.

Some pass their days as though suffering a deep sadness they cannot name. Others are unhappy because life didn't turn out the way they thought it would.

Christians can have doubts and they can have questions, and the unhealthy way to deal with that is to keep them inside where they fester and grow and can undermine our faith. The healthy way to deal with it is to talk about it and be honest about it.