Quotes about Church

I have never quite managed to see how we can make sense of the sacramental life of the Church without a theology of the risen body; and I have never managed to see how to put together such a theology without belief in the empty tomb. If a corpse clearly marked 'Jesus of Nazareth' turned up, I should save myself a lot of trouble and become a Quaker.

Most Christians have at some point faced the question, "Which church should I attend?" After reading Attack Upon Christendom the question becomes, "Is it OK for a Christian to go to church?

If a pastor's activity in the church is merely a once-a-week attempt to tow the congregation's cargo ship a little closer to eternity, the whole thing comes to nothing. A human life, unlike a cargo ship, cannot lie in the same place until the next Sunday.

But in Christendom we play at believing, play at being Christians; as far as possible from any breach with what we love, we remain at home, in the parlor, in the old grooves of finiteness — and then we go and twaddle with one another, or let the pastor twaddle to us, about all the promises which are found in the New Testament, that no one shall harm us, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against us, against the Church, etc.

The strength of the church is not the strength of its institutions but the authenticity of its witness.

Princes, kings, and other rulers of the world have used all their strength and cunning against the Church, yet it continues to endure and hold its own.

Neglect of private prayer is the locust which devours the strength of the church.

To be a leader in the Church has always required strength and faith beyond the merely human.

The Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship, but to keep her on her course.

There are pockets of the church that will "give up," and reap a bountiful harvest. They are going to have huge success, like the church has never experienced since the Book of Acts.

The absolutely highest stage of intercourse with God is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament Church, when man's individuality is not superseded nor suppressed, but transformed, and thus conformed to Him in spiritual fellowship.

So this was all which these Pharisees and Scribes could see in the miracle of Christ's feeding the Multitude--that it had not been done according to Law! Most strange as it may seem, yet in the past history of the Church, and, perhaps, sometimes also in the present, this has been the only thing which some men have seen in the miraculous working of the Christ!