Church Bells Quotes

I will be so glad for you to hear not the sounds of gunfire but the sounds of church bells, and of people working in peace. ~ Elizabeth Berg

And all the world is football shaped, It's just for me to kick in space, And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste, And I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime, Trying to take this all in, I've got one, two, three, four, five Senses working overtime, Trying to taste the difference, 'Tween the lemons and limes, The pain and the pleasure, And the church bells softly chime. ~ Andy Partridge

I could hear the exasperation in her voice, so beautiful and familiar, but sad, too, like hearing church bells right before your funeral. ~ Brock Clarke

New Rule: Churches have to stop ringing the damn bells. It was a good idea in the Middle Ages, but people have clocks now. It's not like you're doing us all a favor by keeping the hunchbacks off the street. Make up your mind, are you a house of worship or an ice cream truck? ~ Bill Maher

Bell, thou soundest merrily, When the bridal party To the church doth hie! Bell, thou soundest solemnly, When, on Sabbath morning, Fields deserted lie! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

She was the stars and the heavens and the oceans. There was nothing but that single fragment of time, and this bud of love we had planted inside it. And then, at some point after it started, the kiss ended, and I stroked her hair, and the church bells rang in the distance and everything in the world was in alignment. ~ Matt Haig

Aristocrats are like church bells: expensive, pretty, and only useful when regularly struck. ~ D.D. Webb

I often heard this melodious hymn again in days of hardship, and it always affected me painfully. Not as the reproachful warning clang of church bells ringing for service, when I pass a church door without going in, but because the men sang the hymn only when they were out of spirits and considered our position desperate. It seemed as though they would remind me that defeat awaited me, and that this time I had aimed too high. ~ Sven Hedin

Church bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood, The land of spices; something understood. ~ George Herbert

When he was twenty-three years old, he (George Fox) saw the inner light in a vision. For him it symbolized the spirit against the letter, silence against chatter, experience against dogma, and equality against all who build inequality on authority and power, be it of the state or religion. His mistrust of the official Anglican Church was immense. He spoke with disdain of the "towered houses" and was tormented by the ringing of church bells. He frequently interrupted preachers, standing in the church's doorway, a hat covering his head, and uttering threatening words toward the pulpit, causing great excitement in the gathered congregation. It often resulted in Fox being beaten up, banished, and, later on, jailed for years.

What aroused his ire, above all, were the priests who, without ever having experienced or even looked for illumination, presented themselves as servants of God but, in truth, comprised a "society of cannibals." It is "not enough to have been educated in Oxford or Cambridge in order to become capable for and efficient in the service of Christ.

To this day it is difficult for many Friends to speak of "Quaker theology." The Friends believe in Scripture - George Fox knew it by heart - but they also believe that the Spirit transcends Scripture and that the inner light is experienced by all human beings without human mediation. "The inner light," "the inward teacher" are names that the early Quakers gave to their experiences of the Spirit. T ~ Dorothee Solle

I'm getting married in the morning! / Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime. / Pull out the stopper! Let's have a whopper! / But get me to the church on time!. ~ Alan Jay Lerner

Ursula missed the sound of church bells. There were so many simple things she had taken for granted before the war. She wished that she could go back and appreciate them properly. ~ Kate Atkinson

I once compiled a list of events that frightened her, and it was quite comprehensive: very loud snoring; low-flying aircraft; church bells; fire engines; trains; buses and lorries; thunder; shouting; large cars; most medium-sized cars; noisy small cars; burglar alarms; fireworks, especially crackers; loud radios; barking dogs; whinnying horses; nearby silent horses; cows in general; megaphones; sheep; corks coming out of sparkling wine bottles; motorcycles, even very small ones; balloons being popped; vacuum cleaners (not being used by her); things being dropped; dinner gongs; parrot houses; whoopee cushions; chiming doorbells; hammering; bombs; hooters; old-fashioned alarm clocks; pneumatic drills; and hairdryers (even those used by her). ~ John Cleese

You have the body of a god and the smile of a demon. I walk towards you, barefoot, a believer walking a religious path. I wrap my arms around your neck, a priest hugging his crucifix.
I offer you my all. Burn me like incense.
Let's make all the church bells in hell ring just for us. ~ Malak El Halabi

Caught between the longing for love, and the struggle for the legal tender, where the sirens sing and the church bells ring, and the junk man pounds his fender. Where the veterans dream of the fight, fast asleep at the traffic light, and the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor. ~ Jackson Browne

It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy - about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind. ~ Daniel Keyes

Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell. ~ Charles Studd

You can rescue someone from danger, but not from change and death; the soldier who survives the battle becomes someone else, something else, somewhere else. His war subsides; his memory fades; his nation ceases to exist; all but the elemental structures decay away; the very atoms that were once warring sides are now soil, trees, lovers, birds; all the medals are playthings for strangers; the cannons have been melted down and turned back into church bells that will become cannons again for another war. ~ Rebecca Solnit

The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds
the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Color - that's another thing people don't expect. In her imagination, in her dreams, everything has color. The museum buildings are beige, chestnut, hazel. Its scientists are lilac and lemon yellow and fox brown. Piano chords loll in the speaker of the wireless in the guard station, projecting rich blacks and complicated blues down the hall toward the key pound. Church bells send arcs of bronze careening off the windows. Bees are silver; pigeons are ginger and auburn and occasionally golden. The huge cypress trees she and her father pass on their morning walk are shimmering kaleidoscopes, each needle a polygon of light.
She has no memories of her mother but imagines her as white, a soundless brilliance. Her father radiates a thousand colors, opal, strawberry red, deep russet, wild green; a smell like oil and metal, the feel of a lock tumbler sliding home, the sound of his key rings chiming as he walks. He is an olive green when he talks to a department head, an escalating series of oranges when he speaks to Mademoiselle Fleury from the greenhouses, a bright red when he tries to cook. He glows sapphire when he sits over his workbench in the evenings, humming almost inaudibly as he works, the tip of his cigarette gleaming a prismatic blue. ~ Anthony Doerr

The church-bells of innumerable sects are all chime-bells to-day, ringing in sweet accordance throughout many lands, and awaking a great joy in the heart of our common humanity. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Today were Wednesday and you decided that it would be quite possible for your desire to embody a new realization of yourself by Sunday, then Sunday becomes the point in time that you would visit. To make this visit you shut out Wednesday and let in Sunday. This is accomplished by simply feeling that it is Sunday, Begin to hear the church bells; begin to feel the quietness of the day and all that Sunday means to you; actually feel that it is Sunday. ~ Neville Goddard

For bells are the voice of the church; They have tones that touch and search The hearts of young and old. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments and shops that constitute one's first universe. ~ Henry Anatole Grunwald

One of the beauties of working in radio is the way a whole setting can be richly evoked simply by the addition to the track of a little birdsong and a church bell in the distance. ~ Peter Blegvad

It comes down to this. When we die, not only will our bodies be gone, but so will the people we remember. We live in the world, and we recall the world, and one day we won't do either anymore. The church bells will ring and the drunks will drink. ~ Peter Orner

Crucial insights that we need to convey to ourselves can often be received only at night, like city church bells that have to wait until dark to be heard. During ~ Alain De Botton

In London there is a man who screams when the church bells ring. He lives all alone with his streaked cat in Gray's Inn, and people call him harmlessly mad. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

How long have I been here? I haven't been able to tell day from night with eyes covered." [Vincent]
"Nor could you anyway, in here. There are no windows and the walls are so thick you cannot hear the church bells. It was built so that the one who prayed here would not be aware of the passage of time or the world outside. When we reach into the higher planes, we pass beyond time. Only the body is governed by time, but that too, I will change". [Sylvian] ~ Karen Maitland

Not a word was spoken. The church bells all were broken. ~ Don McLean

The most sacred truths of the faith are given full material reality, leading up to that moment when Christ himself becomes present at the altar. This was marked by the moment of elevation when the priest held up the host, become by a miracle the body of Jesus. At that instant candles and torches, made up of bundles of wood, were lit to illuminate the scene; the sacring bell was rung, and the church bells pealed so that those in the neighbouring streets or fields might be aware of the solemn moment. It was the sound which measured the hours of their day. Christ was present in their midst once more and, as a the priest lifted up the thin wafer of bread, time and eternity were reconciled. ~ Peter Ackroyd

What is a church?-Our honest sexton tells, 'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells. ~ George Crabbe

Life is transient and death is unfathomable, but questions nonetheless abound. What is the driving purpose behind the prosodic life of an ordinary person such as me? What emotional rhythms, pitches, pauses, stresses, and intonations drive the meter of person's life? When the church bells toll my parting day, what tone will it strike in the hearts of other people, if any? Is there a person whoever traversed this crusty rock that we call planet Earth who did not wish for other people to remember them after their death? I confess sharing the vain longing of all men, however humble, to be remembered, not for the crimes that I committed but for fully expressing the poetic gift of life. When I ask what other people will think when I die, I must also ask why I lived, what did I live for, and what joy did I bring other people, if any. What acts, thoughts, and deeds make people beloved? What resounding chime resonates with all loving people? What magical filament binds us? What serves as the ethereal umbilical cord that causes all conscience stricken humans to crave the same universal sense of being? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

But if she'd come then, she would never have properly appreciated it. She'd have seen the happy crowds and the Union Jacks and the bonfires, but she'd have no idea of what it meant to see the lights on after years of navigating in the dark, what it meant to look up at an approaching plane without fear, to hear church bells after years of air-raid sirens. She'd have had no idea of the years of rationing and shabby clothes and fear which lay behind the smiles and the cheering, no idea of what it had cost to bring this day to pass
the lives of all those soldiers and sailors and airmen and civilians. ~ Connie Willis

April 26 - I know I shouldn't hang around the college when I'm through at the lab, but seeing the young men and women going back and forth carrying books and hearing them talk about all the things they're learning in their classes excites me. I wish I could sit and talk with them over coffee in the Campus Bowl Luncheonette when they get together to argue about books and politics and ideas. It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy - about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind. Sometimes I listen in on the conversations at the tables around me, and pretend I'm a college student, even though I'm a lot older than they are. I carry books around, and I've started to smoke a pipe. It's silly, but since I belong at the lab I feel as if I'm a part of the university. I hate to go home to that lonely room. ~ Daniel Keyes

Those nights when the future seemed to last only till the morning and he would count off the hours, one by one, by the chimes of distant church bells. ~ Paolo Giordano

I have faith that God will show you the answer. But you have to understand that sometimes it takes a while to be able to recognize what God wants you to do. That's how it often is. God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I'm worried that a few people are confusing the ringing of a church bell with the ringing of a cash register, .. When I hear about leaders of charities being provided a $300,000 Bentley to drive around in, my fear is that it's the taxpayers who subsidize this charity who are really being taken for a ride. ~ Chuck Grassley

The hoarse church-bells of London ring;
The hoarser horns of London croak;
The poor brown lives of London cling
About the poor brown streets like smoke;
The deep air stands above my roof
Like water, to the floating stars.
My friend and I - we sit aloof -
We sit and smile, and bind our scars. ~ Stella Benson

Got a problem." "I can't fix your personality, sorry." Lassiter laughed, the sound ringing through the house like church bells. "No. I like myself just as I am, thank you." "Can't help your delusional nature, either. ~ J.R. Ward

One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time. Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession. And beyond any particular clock, a vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe, lays down the law of time equally for all. ~ Alan Lightman

Dong.
Dong.
Dong.
The third toll of the church bells hovered in the air, and everything became still. Someone in the village had died. Valerie froze.
Dong.
A forth toll shattered the silence. The world split open, exposing a raw inside.
Valerie and Peter looked at each other first in confusion, then in awful understanding.
The fourth bell meant only one thing: Wolf attack.
She had never heard the fourth bell except for the time she and Peter had rung it themselves.
With those bells, Valerie knew.
Life would never be the same, ~ Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet - there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions are . . . that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed, that they feed for three days any Muslim who passes by their homes . . . that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit, that they do not imitate Muslims in dress and speech, nor ride horses, nor own swords, nor arm themselves with any kind of weapon; that they do not sell wine, do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer, that they shave their hair in front so as to make them easily identifiable, do not incite anyone against the Muslims, and do not strike a Muslim. . . . If they violate these conditions, they have no protection .40 ~ Raymond Ibrahim

He could hear church bells as he drowsed, both from the civil station and from the missionaries out beyond the slaughter house--different bells and rung with
different intent, for one set was calling firmly to Anglo-India, and the other feebly to mankind.
He did not object to the first set; the other he ignored, knowing their inefficiency. ~ E. M. Forster

Statements made by distant church bells remind me it is Sunday. Today the sky has become cloudy. I have been watching the clouds and it occurs to me that I have never done this in my life before, simply sit and watch clouds. As a child I would have been far too anxious to 'waste time' in this way. And my mother would have stopped me. As I write this I am sitting on my plot of grass behind the house where I have put a chair, cushions, rugs. It is evening. Thick lumpy slate-blue clouds, their bulges lit up to a lighter blue, move slowly across a sky of muddy and yet brilliant gold, a sort of dulled gilt effect. At the horizon there is a light glittering slightly jagged silver line, like modern jewellery. Beneath it the sea is a live choppy lyrical goldeny-brown, jumping with white flecks. The air is warm. Another happy day. ('Whatever will you do down there?' they asked.)
In a quiet surreptitious way I am feeling very pleased with myself. ~ Iris Murdoch

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail the sky cracked its poems in naked wonder, that the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze, leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder ~ Bob Dylan

I got the idea of Loving from a manservant in the Fire Service during the war. He was serving with me in the ranks, and he told me he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what the old boy most liked in the world. The reply was: 'Lying in bed on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to the church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers.' I saw the book in a flash. ~ Henry Green

As the syringe was filled, Butch stepped up into the surgeon's grille. Even as incapacitated as the cop was from the inhaling, he was straight-up deadly as he spoke. "I don't need to tell you not to f*ck my buddy. Right."
The surgeon looked around his little-glass-bottle-and-needle routine. "I'm not thinking about sex at the moment, thank you very much. But if I was, it sure as shit wouldn't be with him. So instead of worrying about who I'm tapping, how'd you like to do us all a favor and have a shower. You stink."
Butch blinked. Then smiled a little. "You have balls."
"And they're made of brass. Big as church bells, too. ~ J.R. Ward

WHEN SIN HINDERS YOUR WORSHIP.
God will never delay His promise.
You have delayed Him.

"..However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8b ~ Mac Canoza

In many ways, the church seems to hate evil more than it loves good or even God. ~ Carlton Pearson

Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. ~ Timothy Keller

While Crowley struggled throughout his life to popularize the OTO, the Church of Scientology became hugely successful, and now claims over eight million members in some 3,000 churches spread across fifty-four countries. It is said to make more than $300 million a year, and Hubbard's numerous writings are central to its success. ~ George Pendle

In England, the struggle between church and kings would take centuries to resolve. Interestingly, in the end, neither institution came out on top. Today, each is as powerless as the other. As people power emerged, we invented politicians. We're not bright. ~ Jodi Taylor

My dad was a really good surfer, and by the time I was 10, he was dragging me out on some good days at Bells. I'd reckon they were solid, 6-foot days, and he'd tell me to wait on the shoulder. I'd see him coming through the barrel, and he'd just scream at me to go. I'd drop in, and he'd give me a hoot from behind - I've always loved it. ~ Xavier Rudd

You can ask Jack about
getting into Eternal Truth."
"You want Jack to go to church?" Hardy
asked blankly. "Honey, he'd be struck by
lightning as soon as he went in the front
door."
Haven grinned at him. "Compared to you,
Jack is a choirboy."
"Since he's your big brother," he told her
kindly, "I'll let you keep your illusions. ~ Lisa Kleypas

He'd was called first Cephas in Aramaic, then Petros, rock, in Greek. Eventually he became Peter and the Gospels proclaimed that Christ said, Upon this rock I shall build my church.'
The testimony was the first ancient account he'd ever read that made sense. No supernatural events or miraculous apparitions. No actions contrary to history or logic. No inconsistent details that cast doubt on credibility. Just the testimony by a simple fisherman of how he'd borne witness to a great man, one whose good works and kind words lived on after his death, enough to inspire him to continue the cause. ~ Steve Berry

Advent is the spiritual season of hope par excellence, and in this season the whole Church is called to be hope, for itself and for the world. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Christians think a long record of church attendence and Bible reading is equivalent to an advanced degree in science. ~ Graham Kendall

My identity in Christ is more important than my identity as an American or as a Coloradan or as a white male or as a Protestant. Church is the place where I celebrate that new identity and work it out in the midst of people who have many differences but share this one thing in common. We are charged to live out a kind of alternative society before the eyes of the watching world, a world that is increasingly moving toward tribalism and division. ~ Philip Yancey

But why? Who would do such a thing?" Jennifer puzzled, astonished.
"I'm not sure yet who they are or exactly what their function is. My sense is they minimize the impact of these kinds of events and limit damage to the church," Rothenberg surmised.
"You have got to be kidding! ~ Mark M. Bello

'Eat my flesh,' Jesus says, 'and drink my blood.' The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children ~ Clement Of Alexandria

If you want your ministry to have 'it', more important than anything else we've discussed, you must have 'it'. When it has filtered through your heart - the rare combination of passion, integrity, focus, faith, expectation, drive, hunger, and God's anointing - God tends to infuse your ministry with 'it'. He blesses your work. People are changed. Leaders grow. Resources flow. The ministry seems to take on a life of its own. ~ Craig Groeschel

Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids of modernity it has volunteered itself right out of existence. Demystification has dwindled into desacralization. The escape from routinization has become a convenient cover for the demise of repentance. The postmodern pastor is trying to learn anew to listen to the deeper range of feelings of others, without forgetfulness of the Word of God. ~ Thomas C. Oden

Princess Diana was a wonderful, caring philanthropist. She would come sometimes into the church and sit at the back and pray. ~ Princess Diana

...the word occult, despite conjuring images of devil worship, actually means 'hidden' or 'obscured.' In times of religious oppression, knowledge that was counterdoctrinal had to be kept hidden or 'occult,' and because the church felt threatened by this, they redefined anything 'occult' as evil, and the prejudice survived. > ~ Dan Brown

If we would, as wise master-builders, really build up the Church, we must be careful as to our foundation at the first; and upon that foundation we must keep on building to the end. As far as I am concerned, the things which I taught at the first are those wherein I abide until this day. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I have no doubt that ignorance is the biggest obstacle facing the church of the lord Jesus Christ in this age ~ Sunday Adelaja

can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day. ~ A.W. Tozer

The wind stirs through the trees, it moves the leaves, and it sways the branches - and yet it is unseen. The sound of it is detected, the effect of it is noticed, and yet it itself is unseen. In a way that is similar: the Spirit stirs in the heart, it moves emotions, it sways the mind, and by doing so causes a physical response to occur that defies human logic, and transcends perception. ~ Calvin W. Allison

PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress. ~ Ambrose Bierce

We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent ... This leads to frightful results ... The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so ... Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue. ~ Bertrand Russell

Growing up in the church in West Virginia, faith is always there. It's part of the fabric of the culture. ~ DeVon Franklin

I can't tell if you want it to be true," he says in a low voice that I feel as if I'm the only one who can hear. "I don't know either," I tell him honestly. "But if you are, I think I need to go to church tomorrow, because that means impossible things exist like unicorns and the resurrection." He laughs then, a wide mouthed, white teeth flashing. "Tomorrow's Friday." I nod. "I know, but it can't ever be too early to repent. ~ Jen Frederick

She hesitated slightly. "I've seen what was called telekinesis with dice - but I'm no mathematician and I could not testify that what I saw was telekinesis." "Hell's bells, you wouldn't testify that the sun had risen if the day was cloudy. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The Catholic Church discourages non-Catholics from receiving the Eucharist, so I remained in my seat as the twenty or so congregants approached the altar to receive the elements. The "Not Catholic?" part of my brochure suggested I use this moment to "pray for the reunification of the church," which, though I'm sure it was unintended, sounded a lot like, "You sit here and think about that schism you caused. ~ Rachel Held Evans

Sewers are necessary to guarantee the wholesomeness of palaces, according to the Fathers of the Church. And it has often been remarked that the necessity exists of sacrificing one part of the female sex in order to save the other and prevent worse troubles. One of the arguments in support of slavery, advanced by the American supporters of the institution, was that the Southern whites, being all freed from servile duties, could maintain the most democratic and refined relations among themselves; in the same way, a caste of 'shameless women' allows the 'honest woman' to be treated with the most chivalrous respect. The prostitute is a scapegoat; man vents his turpitude upon her, and he rejects her. Whether she is put legally under police supervision or works illegally in secret, she is in any case treated as a pariah. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

I grew up in the church, and I always kind of knew Bible stories and knew the Sunday school answers, but when I was a freshman in high school I joined youth group, and that's when I started to see radical love; that's when I started to see what Christian community is supposed to look like and what fellowship is supposed to look like. ~ Jeremy Lin

As all who come into the country must obey the King, so all who come into an university must be of the Church. ~ James Boswell

Man is a being born to believe. And if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of truth to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own imagination. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Jesus never asked me to give to an organization the kind of exclusive devotion he demands from his disciples. Over and over, Jesus calls people to himself - out of the church, the culture, the economy, and the family. ~ Michael Spencer

Many believe that the Vatican withheld important parts of the Third Secret, perhaps because its contents were too dangerous to reveal... ~ Peter J. Tanous

Advertising," he wrote, "now compares with such long-standing institutions as the school and the church in the magnitude of its social influence. It dominates the media, it has vast power in the shaping of popular standards and it is really one of the very limited groups of institutions which exercise social control. ~ David Halberstam

Anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God which conflicts with church dogma must be burned without pity. ~ Pope Innocent III

Church members are either pillars or caterpillars. The pillars hold up the church, and the caterpillars just crawl in and out. ~ Grenville Kleiser

What I have seen in the past 10 years of traveling- performing at a church one day and a casino the next- is that a lot of people in the church want to be entertained, and people in casinos want to be ministered to. That's hard to understand, but I see a hunger in the world that I don't see in the church. ~ Ricky Skaggs

The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table. ~ Henri Nouwen

I long for people to fall in love with God and each other, and so I'm a big fan of being radically inclusive, whether that means not turning off transsexuals or folks who drive SUVs. But I also became aware of how delicate that venture can prove to be. The temptation we face is to compromise the cost of discipleship, and in the process, the Christian identity can get lost. We don't want folks to walk away. We're driven by a sincere longing for others to know God's love and grace and to experience Christian community. And yet we can end up merely cheapening the very thing we want folks to experience. This is the "cheap grace"4 that spiritual writer and fellow revolutionary Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "the most deadly enemy of the church." And he knew all too well the cost of discipleship; after all, it led to his execution in 1945 for his participation in the Protestant resistance against Hitler. ~ Shane Claiborne

And oft the blessed time foretells
When all men shall be free;
And musical, as silver bells,
Their falling chains shall be. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The news came early to the beggars in front of the church, and it made them giggle a little with pleasure, for they knew that there is no Almsgiver in the world like a poor man who is suddenly lucky. ~ John Steinbeck

If the Church is 'in Christ,' she is involved in mission. Her whole existence then has a missionary character. Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence. ~ David Bosch

God's promise is to save the church and all who loves him ~ Sunday Adelaja