All Quotes By Tag: Bible

“But if we are all God’s children, why does God spend so much time in history ordering one branch of his universal family to wipe out another branch? Why did his love for his Jewish children have to be expressed by the extermination of his Palestinian children? Why did he later abandon his Jewish children in favour of his Christian children and encourage his new favourites to torment their older siblings? Why did he order his Muslim children who worship him as One to persecute his pagan children who worship him as Many? Why is there so much violence in religious history, all done by groups who claim God is on their side?Unless you are prepared to believe that God actually plays favourites like some kind of demented tyrant, then there are only two ways out of this dilemma. The obvious one is to decide that there is no God. What is called God is a human invention used, among other things, to justify humankind’s love of violence and hatred of strangers. Getting rid of God won’t solve the problem of human violence but it will remove one of its pretexts.”

“So yes, religion has caused and continues to cause some of the worst violence in history. And yes, it has used God to justify it. So if we mean by God the loving creator of the universe, then either he doesn’t exist or religion has got him wrong. Either way, religion should make us wary. That doesn’t necessarily mean we should abandon it altogether. We may decide to stick with it but to do so with humility, admitting the evil it has done as well as the good. It’s up to us.”

“As we have seen so often in this book, religion may begin with mystical experiences but it always leads to politics. It starts with the voice heard by the prophets who are its chosen instruments. And what they hear always leads to actions that affect the way people live: with politics. Sometimes the politics are bad. People are persecuted for following the wrong faith or for listening to the wrong voice. Or they are forced to embrace the message announced by the latest hot prophet. So the history of religion becomes a study in different forms of oppression. But sometimes the politics are good. They are about liberation, not oppression. We saw good politics in the stand the Pennsylvanian Quakers made against slavery in 1688. And in the African American Church today the politics of Christianity are still about liberation. The tactics of Moses and the promises of Jesus are used to make the world a better place. Religion is no longer used as an opiate to dull the pain of injustice and inequality but as a stimulant to overcome it. That’s what keeps many people in the religion game.”

“I suppose that Christmas seems vexingly improbable in my mind because God did something for all of mankind that I’m too selfish to do even for myself. But isn’t that the exact reason why we need Christmas?”

“We are deathly afraid of attempting great things, yet on the other hand we are also deathly afraid of missing great things. But the larger question in all of this might be, “Why is it that great things matter to us in the first place?” They matter because God made us for great things.”

“The genius in Christmas is that it changes the trajectory of everything through a baby who was born into nothing. And if we have any shred of genius in us at all, it will be evidenced by our willingness to embrace that ‘everything’ out of our ‘nothing.”

“Christmas and hope are bound inseparable. But because we can’t separate ourselves from our need to deny such a truth, we’ve bound ourselves to live without hope.”

“What I need is not that which I find, for what I need is far bigger than my ability to find it. What I need is that which finds me. Hence, Christmas.”

“We have been granted an exclusive part in the greatest story ever told. And without a doubt, to walk away from that part would be to write greatest tragedy ever conceived.”

“Christmas subjugates the pessimism of my mind to the optimism of God’s heart. On second thought, it might be more accurate to say that it drowns it.”

“It’s not that God can’t rescue us. It’s that we choose not to be rescued because we’re too blind to see the necessity of it.”

“…a deep and even paranoid suspicion continues to disparage higher criticism of the Bible, as if someone could publish a paper that would unravel God. (p. 151)”

“First and foremost, God is the true hero of the story. No matter how captivating the other characters may be, our top priority is to discover what the Bible reveals about God.”

“So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalising effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.”

“The wise men posit questions to which they may not always find immediate answers, but through their reflections God stimulates man in his search for truth – which in the last analysis is a search for God himself.”