quotations about church
Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.
NEAL STEPHENSON
Snow Crash
The nearer the church, the further from God.
BISHOP ANDREWS
sermon on the Nativity before James I, 1622
See, that why I ain't go to church. Figger I got me a church wherever I be. Want'a talk to God, well I say, "howdy-howdy, God," and we jaw fer a bit.
DAVID BALDACCI
Wish You Well
What has made the Church of Christ what it is to-day? Our struggles? Did we face the persecutions of Nero? Did we flee from the persecuting hordes in the Waldensian valleys? Did we fight the battles with the Duke of Alva on the plains of Netherlands? Did we struggle with hierarchical despotism at Worcester and at Naseby? Did we face the cold and the suffering of New England? Others have struggled for us, and we have taken the fruit of their struggles; and if our posterity are to have a nation worthy of their possession, it will be because in us there is also some hand-to-hand wrestling, some self-denial, some struggle with the forces of corruption and evil in our own time. This is the great general law which Paul has expressed in the declaration, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now." Vicarious sacrifice is not an episode. It is the universal law of life. Life comes only from life. This is the first proposition. Life-giving costs the life-giver something. That is the second proposition. Pain is travail-pain, birth-pain; and it is a part of the divine order -- that is, of the order of nature -- that the birth of a higher life should always be through the pain of another.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The Church had the words reason and liberty on her lips when the inalienable rights of the human race were threatened with shipwreck.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Letters to Young Men
I'm more spiritual than I am religious. I don't go to church; I go to the beach.
PAULA DEEN
Good Housekeeping, Nov. 2009
Behind this Church, made out of the blood and bricks you see before you, there is another Church, infinite and invisible, whose flags are raised towards heaven. This Church lives in the hearts of the millions of the faithful who love Christ and his message. It will be reborn from its ashes and fill the world.
JUAN GOMEZ-JURADO
God's Spy
You left my heart as empty
As a Monday morning church
It used to be so full of faith and now it only hurts
And I can hear the devil whisper
"Things are only getting worse"
You left my heart as empty
As a Mondy morning church
ALAN JACKSON
"Monday Morning Church"
When a man unites with the church, he should not come saying, "I am so holy that I think I must go in among the saints," but, "O brethren, I find I am so weak and wicked that I cannot stand alone; so, if you can help me, open the door and let me enter."
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.
FERDINAND MAGELLAN
attributed, The Quotable Atheist
The Church must be intelligible to the simple as well as to the shrewd.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
A City Set on a Hill
The church is God's vineyard.
H. BULLINGER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Let us pray for the Catholic Church;
for the Churches throughout
the whole world;
that is, for their truth, unity, and stability;
that in all charity may flourish,
and truth may live.
For our own Church,
that what is lacking in it may be supplied;
what is unsound, corrected;
that all Heresies, Schisms, Scandals,
as well public as private,
may be removed.
Correct the wandering,
convert the unbelieving,
increase the faith of the Church,
destroy Heresies,
discover the crafty enemies,
crush the violent.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
Yeah, what I need
Is a neon church with a jukebox choir
Full of honky tonk angels
With their wings on fire
Straight pourin' out that Johnnie Walker healin'
I got a feelin'
I need a neon church
TIM MCGRAW
"Neon Church"
There are ten church-members by inheritance for one by conviction.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
That which is destroying the Church is not the outward groping of those within it nor the inward groping of those without, but the professionals who control it and who have removed the bells from its steeples.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Light in August
The church always arrives on the scene a little breathless and a little late.
BERNARD LONERGAN
attributed, Quotes for the Journey
Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
It wasn't that she had anything against the faith of the New Testament; left alone, it would be a tender and compassionate religion.... No, what Adelia objected to was the Church's interpretation of God as a petty, stupid, moneygrubbing, retrograde, antediluvian tyrant who, having created a stupendously varied world, had forbidden any inquiry into its complexity, leaving His people flailing in ignorance.
ARIANA FRANKLIN
Mistress of the Art of Death
Gimme dat, church mother in they church hat, clap
Man that Shug Avery Color Purple coming back, clap uhh
When that whole week beat you up and stress ya
But you hear that organ playing it remind ya of ya blessings
And on another note, she just hit another note
Chills down my spine, got me crying, make me over Lord
You don't know about us though, old school church hymms
Deacons get to humming now the drummer finna burst in
(Lordy, Lordy, Lord!) Can you hear me now
Church clothes sweaty, you don't care you just get it now
Testify, how we made martyrs outta these fathers
And rose up all of his daughters to glorify Him with honor
Man I swear I saw Miss Jones with her hair did
Now its flying everywhere she don't care what her head did
She an heir, yea
Caught up in the air, yea
Probably why she clapping like Jesus just hear her prayer, yeah
KB
"Church Clap"