The church is not to be judged by how useful we are as a "supportive institution" and our clergy as members of a "helping profession". The church has its own reason for being, hid within its own mandate and not found in the world. We are not chartered by the Emperor. Stanley Hauerwas
The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'' What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.
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Brennan Manning
Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.
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Anne Lamott
It's time we capture our imaginations for Christ
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Peter E. Gillquist
He'd gone to church for forty years and was only getting worse. It seemed like this should tell God something.
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Sue Monk Kidd
The Lord doesn't want anybody in His house who has to be dragged there.
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Frank D. Gilroy
More Quotes By Stanley Hauerwas
That which makes the church "radical" and forever "new" is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus whereas the world does not. In the church's view, the political left is not...
In fact, even Tillich's socialism was accommodationist because it continued the Constantinian strategy: The way to make the church radical is by identifying the church with secular "radicals", that is, socialists.
The church is constituted as a new people who have been gathered from the nations to remind the world that we are in fact one people. Gathering, therefore, is an eschatological act as it is the foretaste of the unity of the communion of the...
The Church really does not know what [peace and justice] mean apart from the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. After all, Pilate permitted the killing of Jesus in order to secure both peace and justice (Roman style) in Judea.
For example, when Christians discuss sex, it often sounds as if we are somehow "against sex". What we fail to make clear is that sexual passion (the good gifts of God's creation) is now subservient to the demanding business of maintaining a revolutionary community in...
