5 Quotes & Sayings By Richard John Neuhaus

Richard John Neuhaus was born on March 10, 1932, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was educated at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Chicago Divinity School, and Harvard Divinity School. He served as pastor of two Congregations: St. Andrew's Cathedral in Denver, Colorado, and First Presbyterian Church in Rockford, Illinois Read more

He is currently a Research Professor of Theology at Emory University and president of The Institute on Religion and Public Life. He is the author of numerous books, including Moral Leadership; To Change the World: The Irony of American History; The Naked Public Square; Overcoming Evil: How to Keep Your Children Free from Violence; The Naked Gospel; and The Naked Public Square Revisited.

1
Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you don't want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against hope, and the unrelenting refusal to despair. We have not the right to despair, and, finally, we have not the reason to despair Richard John Neuhaus
2
Respect for the dignity of others includes treating them as rational creatures capable of being persuadad by rational argument, even in the face of frequent evidence to the contrary. Richard John Neuhaus
3
The propensity to say and do dumb things, and even wicked things, is simply part of human nature. One can blame the Church or Christianity for such things only on the thoroughly unwarranted assumption that Christianity claims to have abolished human nature. The truth is that Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, is the mother of Western civilization, with all it strengths and weaknesses, including its frequently exaggerated penchant for self-criticism. Like others who know what it is to be a mother, she is not surprised, although sometimes disappointed, when she is blamed for everything and thanked for nothing. . Richard John Neuhaus
4
Progress without the reasoned freedom to think and act is regression to slavery. Richard John Neuhaus