Quotes about Rituals

Superstitions and eccentric habits are a Western substitute for actual idols.

The important thing was the shedding of blood. Sounds barbaric, but the Old Testament was reminding us that there was a significant cost involved in moving from unclean to clean. You didn't have to pay it, but it still had to be paid.

Religion is best when it points beyond itself, like Isaiah or John the Baptist. It is worst when it gives you just enough of the forms to inoculate you against the substance, when it substitutes rituals for reality, the container for the contents, the wineskins for the ecstatic wine.

Western people are a ritually starved people, and in this are different than most of human history.

It is religion's job to teach us and guide us on this discovery of our True Self, but it usually makes the mistake of turning this into a worthiness contest of some sort, a private performance, or some kind of religious achievement on our part, through our belonging to the right group, practicing the right rituals, or believing the right things.

Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it is only a manifestation of the patient's belief.

God doesn't want us to have rigid rituals with Him. In the new covenant, He is more interested in having a relationship with us.

Your religion is what you do when the sermon is over.

We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.

Salvation is not a religion. It's not rules or regulations or rituals. Salvation is a relationship. That relationship doesn't begin when you get to Heaven; it begins here on Earth.

I love prayer candles, and I use them often.

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.