Quotes about Religious

Claims for the occurrence of miraculous events will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There can be no general theory to cover the character of unique events, but the refusal to contemplate the possibility of revelatory disclosures of an unprecedented kind would be an unacceptable limitation, imposed arbitrarily on the horizons of religious thought.

The last great delusion is soon to open before us. Antichrist is to perform his marvelous works in our sight So closely will the counterfeit resemble the true that it will be impossible to distinguish between them except by the Holy Scriptures.

Works of romance, frivolous, exciting tales, are, in hardly less degree, a curse to the reader. The author may profess to teach a moral lesson; throughout his work he may interweave religious sentiments, but often these serve only to veil the folly and worthlessness beneath.

I know that nothing strengthens community like a common enemy. I know that when religious people are feeling overwhelmed by a world with little use for their ancient truths, they can find new meaning by identifying a great evil to oppose.

America's commitment to religious freedom and tolerance should not be conditional.

Michael Green cuts through church cant: "God's church exists not for itself but for the benefit of those who are not yet members. . . . [and] the church which lives for itself will be sure to die by itself." The church is not a religious club and it does not have a secular mission. Instead, it is a worshipping and sending community.

Calling God "Father" (Abba) is not unique to Jesus,15 and neither is it a revelation of a religious profundity that Judaism had not yet comprehended (what can be more intimate than Hosea 1—2 or 11:1—4?). Instead of its being unique, "Father" is characteristic of Jesus but would not have been at all offensive in Judaism.

I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.

But making the greater mistake of being paralyzed to inaction—for fear of making a mistake—for fear of stepping outside some false religious boundary, is something else. For that kind of inaction reveals what we really think of God, that he is a legalistic moral policeman waiting for us to slip up just so that he can make his arrest quota for the day.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Bonhoeffer recognized that standard-issue "religion" had made God small, having dominion only over those things we could not explain. That "religious" God was merely the "God of the gaps," the God who concerned himself with our "secret sins" and hidden thoughts. But Bonhoeffer rejected this abbreviated God.

is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in so doing utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea.