Quotes about Christianity

what about grace? How rare to find a church competing to "out-grace" its rivals.

Grace is Christianity's best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate.

Jimmy Carter taught a Sunday school class throughout his presidency, winning the grudging respect of reporters who had once questioned his religious talk as a political ploy. Even so, he lost many Christians' votes to Ronald Reagan, the only U.S. president to have been divorced and who rarely attended church and gave little to charity, mainly because Reagan supported many of the favorite causes of the religious Right.

To the question Do I matter? Jesus is indeed the answer.

Somehow Christians have gotten a reputation as anti-pleasure, and this despite the fact that they believe pleasure was an invention of the Creator himself. We Christians have a choice. We can present ourselves as uptight bores who sacrificially forfeit half the fun of life by limiting our indulgence in sex, food, and other sensual pleasures. Or we can set about enjoying pleasure to the fullest, which means enjoying it in the way the Creator intended.

Humility is the real Christian virtue," says Nouwen. "When we come to realize that . . . only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives.

Seventy-five thousand people a day become Christians, two-thirds of whom live in Africa.

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

Christianity offers the further insight that true fulfillment comes, not through ego satisfaction, but through service to others.

What greater gift could Christians give to the world than the forming of a culture that upholds grace and forgiveness?

Where did our sense of beauty and pleasure come from? That seems to me a huge question—the philosophical equivalent, for atheists, to the problem of pain for Christians. The Teacher's answer is clear: A good and loving God naturally would want his creatures to experience delight, joy, and personal fulfillment. G. K. Chesterton credits pleasure, or eternity in his heart, as the signpost that eventually directed him to God:

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.