Famous Quotes & Sayings

N. T. Wright

It is central to Christian living that we should celebrate the goodness of creation, ponder its present brokenness, and, insofar as we can, celebrate in advance the healing of the world, the new creation itself. Art, music, literature, dance, theater, and many other expressions of human delight and wisdom, can all be explored in new ways.

N. T. Wright

I really don't care too much what the different later Christian traditions say. My aim is to be faithful to Scripture.

N. T. Wright

problematic within post-Reformation dogmatics. Is faith something I `do' to earn God's favour, and, if not, what role does it play? Once we release Paul's justification-language from the burden of having to describe `how someone becomes a Christian', however, this is simply no longer a problem. There is no danger of imagining that Christian faith is after all a surrogate `work', let alone a substitute form of moral righteousness. Faith is the badge of covenant membership, not something someone `performs' as a kind of initiation test.

N. T. Wright

Learning to live as a Christian is learning to live as a renewed human being, anticipating the eventual new creation in and with a world which is still longing and groaning for that final redemption.

N. T. Wright

As a newborn baby breathes and cries, so the signs of life in a newborn Christian are faith and repentance, inhaling the love of God and exhaling an initial cry of distress. And at that point what God provides, exactly as for a newborn infant, is the comfort, protection, and nurturing promise of a mother. "If God is our father, the church is our mother." The words are those of the Swiss Reformer John Calvin ... it is as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable to be a Christian all by yourself as it is to be a newborn baby all by yourself.

N. T. Wright

For Paul 'righteousness' and 'justice' are the same word, as they were in Hebrew. Paul clearly believes that helping the poor is a central and ongoing part of Christian commitment, precisely because in Jesus Christ God has unveiled and launched his plan for the rescue, redemption and renewal of the whole creation. Justification and justice go very closely together.

N. T. Wright

The rule of love, I say again, is not an optional extra. It is the very essence of what we [Christians] are about

N. T. Wright

Hope, for the Christian, is not wishful thinking or mere blind optimism. It is a mode of knowing, a mode within which new things are possible, options are not shut down, new creation can happen.

N. T. Wright

God's plan is not to abandon this world, the world which he said was "very good." Rather, he intends to remake it. And when he does he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it. That is the promise of the Christian gospel.

N. T. Wright

Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion...

Johnny Giles

The Christian Coalition of Alabama will work to ensure that reckless trial lawyers and activist judges will not be able to open the floodgates to increase taxes and that private, Christian, parochial and home-school families will be protected.

John Wycliffe

The gospel alone is sufficient to rule the lives of Christians everywhere - any additional rules made to govern men's conduct added nothing to the perfection already found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

John Wycliffe

All Christian life is to be measured by Scripture; by every word thereof.

John Ruskin

I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions... Nor has the Church's ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure.

John Ruskin

Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any. Nothing is visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes. Standing within all is clear and defined; every ray of light reveals an army of unspeakable splendors.

John Ruskin

The root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian Church has suffered, has been because of the effort of men to earn, rather than receive their salvation; and the reason preaching is so commonly ineffective is, that it often calls on people to work for God rather than letting God work through them.

John Proctor

I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted, and like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day.

John Polkinghorne

I think it's very important to maintain the classical Christian distinction between the Creator and creation.

Matthew Arnold

At the present moment two things about the Christian religion must surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is.

Matt Diaz

We Christians sometimes think we need a plan for evangelism. I don't think Jesus had an evangelism plan. I think He just interacted with the people He came into contact with.

Matt Cullen

Christian guys had a reputation for being soft or not being tough enough to play the game. But every chapel we've had, our team fighter has been in there. Stu Grimson is very outspoken. Dan Bylsma, the head coach at Pittsburgh, was one guy that really helped me a lot.

Matt Taibbi

Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism.

Maya Angelou

When I say 'I am a Christian', I'm not shouting 'I'm saved'. I'm whispering 'I get lost'. That is why I chose this way...

Matthew Modine

And if I was going to go there – the only person you can really compare Batman to, of those characters, would be Iron Man, another rich guy who has the ability to make fantastic toys – so if you want to take Batman and Iron Man and put them in a battle, that’s an interesting battle. But if you want to take Christian Bale and Robert Downey Jr. and put them in a UFC fighting cage, Christian Bale will – to quote Full Metal Jacket – tear Robert Downey Jr.’s head off and sh-t down his neck.

Matthew Hale

Christianity is part of the Common Law of England.

Marina Tsvetaeva

In this most Christian of worlds all poets are Jews.

Marilynne Robinson

It saddens me that Christians need to be reminded that awe is owed also to those who disagree with them, who believe otherwise than they do.

Marilynne Robinson

The only obligation I recognize is to say what I believe to be true [ ] and to say it with kindness. I believe that is how a Christian conversation should proceed.

Mary Todd Lincoln

My husband is not a Christian but is a religious man, I think.

Mary Todd Lincoln

Mr. Lincoln's maxim and philosophy were: 'What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any Church. He was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian.

Patricia Ireland

The Young Women's Christian Association is nourished by its roots in Christianity and, at the same time, over the years, it's been enriched by beliefs and values from all kinds of places, even, in fact, strengthened by our diversity.

Patricia Ireland

I come from a Christian faith. I am not going to give you insight into my particular beliefs.

Patricia Heaton

On a personal level, as a Christian, it will not be Barbra Streisand I'm standing in front of when I have to make an accounting of my life.