Other References:
Definition of Church
Internet search for Church
Find Church on Amazon
 |
Home | Authors | Topics | Quote of the Day |
|
Quotations on Church 297 Quotes Found I consider myself a non-denominational Christian. I grew up in a Bible church and still hold those beliefs very close to me. I was sent to a nice Church of England girls' school and at that time, after university, a woman was expected to become a teacher, a nurse or a missionary - prior to marriage. The Ethical Society, therefore, is like a Church in maintaining, and emphasizing the importance of maintaining the custom of public assemblies on Sunday. No one can fail to see that the power of the Church among large numbers in many communities is today diminishing, or has already ceased. No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state. We have been filled with grief as we have witnessed the decline of the North American Church that was once filled with missionary zeal and yet now seems determined to bury itself in a deadly embrace with the spirit of the age. We are insisting and we will continue to insist that this faith of the church must continue to be upheld come rain, come fire. That is our position. Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure. The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion. Some movie stars wear their sunglasses even in church. They're afraid God might recognize them and ask for autographs. Men who hold a theory of the Church which excludes from communion those whom they admit to have the Spirit of Christ simply proclaim that their theory is in flat contradiction to the spiritual fact. Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience. I belong to a church and I try to do my Christian duty, so I am against alcohol... But we need the tax money. The ordinary ministry is that which receives all of its direction from the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and from those means which God has appointed in the church for its continual edification. Therefore, the church is not absolutely necessary as an object of faith, not even for us today, for then Abraham and the other prophets would not have given assent to those things which were revealed to them from God without any intervening help of the church. He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the church he currently did not attend was Catholic. In the West there has always been the attempt to try make the religious building, whether it's a Medieval or Renaissance church, an eternal object for the celebration of God. The material chosen, such as stone, brick, or concrete, is meant to eternally preserve what is inside. The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It's a choice you make - not just on your wedding day, but over and over again - and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife. If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals. Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church. There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved. With reference to other religions, the Church sees a great difference between them and herself. The other religions are expressions of the human soul seeking God, with some beautiful spiritual insights, but also not without errors. Christianity is rather God seeking humanity. Remarkable is the greater openness of the Catholic Church towards people of other religious traditions and persuasions. The development has not been without problems, since some people have resisted it and others have pushed openness beyond the desirable point. People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy. I would say that social work began in my mind in the Unitarian Church when I was ten or twelve years old, and I started to do things that I thought would help other people. We have taken a giant step forward in correcting some of the misconceptions people have about the church. I think that we've made a lot of friends. If men are wont to play with swearing anywhere, can we expect they should be serious and strict therein at the bar or in the church. In an age robbed of religious symbols, going to the shops replaces going to the church. We have a free choice, but at a price. We can win experience, but never achieve innocence. Marx knew that the epic activities of the modern world involve not lance and sword but dry goods. I have devoted my energies to the study of the scriptures, observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in church; study, teaching, and writing have always been my delight. The Church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones. The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution. Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. Nobody seems to know yet how television is going to affect the radio, movies, love, housekeeping or the church, but it has definitely revived vaudeville. For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most. Compared to America or Europe, God isn't a big part of our lives here. I don't know anyone here who goes to church when he's had a rough divorce or is going through depression. We go out into nature instead. What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride! The president of the branch in Atlanta was a pastor of a church, the Reverend Sam Williams, a wonderful guy. He was middle-class and fairly militant for the time and place. Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist. Last winter when I was coming home from church one Thursday evening, I saw somebody run around the house again. I told my father of that. It is sufficient to say, what everybody knows to be true, that the Irish population is Catholic, and that the Protestants, whether of the Episcopalian or Presbyterian Church, or of both united, are a small minority of the Irish people. It is death that goes down to the center of the earth, the great burial church the earth is, and then to the curved ends of the universe, as light is said to do. If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church. When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it. Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God. Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church? I contend the state ought to do its thing and provide legal rights for all couples who want to be joined together for life. The church should bless unions that it sees fit to bless, and they should be called marriages. I believe with all my heart that the Church of Jesus Christ should be a Church of blurred edges. I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. I went to Montreal. My first gig went very badly. They just weren't laughing at anything. I found out they were a load of Christians, and it was a gig to raise money for a new church roof. I couldn't do any of my other characters, you know? But I could have done the lady. Church Lady's Malibu Beach party is an idea I have for a movie, too. Yes.
|
|
|