Quotes about Relevance

The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication.

It was one thing to believe that such things were possible thousands of years ago, another to have it happen now, to us, this very day.

If you don't know the purpose of something, all you can do is misuse it.

But if Christians don't get Jesus right, what chance is there that other people will bother much with him?

Stanley Hauerwas, named "America's best theologian" by Time magazine, summed up the problem: "I have come to think that the challenge confronting Christians is not that we do not believe what we say, though that can be a problem, but that what we say we believe does not seem to make any difference for either the church or the world.

Christians obscured the good news by their efforts to restore morality to the broader culture?

Stanley Hauerwas, named "America's best theologian" by Time magazine, summed up the problem: "I have come to think that the challenge confronting Christians is not that we do not believe what we say, though that can be a problem, but that what we say we believe does not seem to make any difference for either the church or the world." When a poll of college students asked

What practically defines the evangelical church today is an emphasis on two issues that Jesus did not even mention.

One reason the broader world does not look to Christianity for guidance is that we Christians have not spoken with a credible voice.

Legalism lowers, rather than raises, God's standards. Loving your neighbor as yourself, caring for the poor, bringing about justice, forgiving enemies—none of these reduces to a set of rules. Indeed, any list of rules narrows the breadth of what God wants done in the world. It moves the emphasis away from dispensing God's grace to sinners toward a pointless competition with pseudo-saints. It makes faith petty and irrelevant, not something that urgently matters.

The more Christians focus on tangential issues, the less we will be heard on matters of true moral significance.

Does the Christian emphasis on love, grace, and forgiveness have any relevance outside quarreling families or church encounter groups? In a world where force matters most, a lofty ideal like forgiveness may seem as insubstantial as vapor.