Church Tradition Quotes

The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone. ~ Gene Robinson

It behooves us unanimously and inviolably to observe the ecclesiastical traditions, whether codified or simply retained by the customary practice of the Church. ~ Peter Canisius

He who does not believe according to the tradition of the Catholic Church is an unbeliever. ~ John Of Damascus

Protestant church tradition developed over several centuries when Christians were not yet forced, by virtue of the culminating evidence, to see the Bible in its ancient context. ~ Peter Enns

There is no gay leader anywhere near the stature of Martin Luther King, because black activism drew on the profound spiritual tradition of the church, to which gay political rhetoric is childishly hostile. ~ Camille Paglia

The emergent Church is the latest act in the wave of antimodernist revolt by liturgical renewal and charismatic revival, a rebellion whose central insight is that rationalistic fundamentalism, as much as liberalism, is a mass of worldly accretions. The historical record and human feeling, not the illusion of inerrancy, are supposed to command authority in the post-Christian age. Yet American evangelicals' craving for clear authority is second only to their refusal to let any authority boss them around. Skeptics note that the Emergent Church is a movement of quintessentially evangelical individualists. 'By constantly appealing to the "capital T" Tradition, and then in effect picking and choosing from its offerings, they do not succeed in living out any of the traditions that flow from the Tradition, but create their own eclectic, ad hod churchmanship,' wrote D.A. Carson, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. 'It is controlled by what these emerging thinkers judge to be appropriate in the postmodern world - and this results, rather ironically, in one of the most self-serving appeals to tradition I have ever seen. ~ Molly Worthen

Is it your conviction that small-town life, centered on church, tradition, and fear of God, is our best bulwark against murder and mayhem? Well, think again. As Europe became more urban, cosmopolitan, commercial, industrialized, and secular, it got safer and safer. And that brings us back to the ideas of Norbert Elias, the only theory left standing. Elias ~ Steven Pinker

Our faith is often embodied in the relationships and neighborhoods where we live. In our world of globalization, technology, and mobility, we've misplaced the sacredness of place.
The act of staying and living in our place has an impact on us practically, of course, but also on us theologically. It's not always sexy to stay put, is it? In most of my church tradition, no one ever mentioned the holy work of staying. ~ Sarah Bessey

God expects us to measure the church not against tradition but against the standards & promises of His Word. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Virtually every church tradition, by theology, interpretive strategies, or pastoral practice, makes accommodations for divorced people who seek to remarry. These accommodations permit divorced people to enter unions that are outside the rule laid down in the Bible. But we can't have it both ways. We can't apply a strict "biblical marriage" rule to gay people and not apply it to those who are divorced and remarried. ~ Ken Wilson

The best advice I can give you is this. Church tradition - especially when they do not run counter to the Faith - are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down. ~ Jerome

Eventually everyone vacates church where God is not obviously present and working. Getting people back to church is pointless unless God comes back first - that's what Vertical Church is all about! Ritual church, tradition church, felt-need church, emotional-hype church, rules church, Bible-boredom church, relevant church, and many other iterations are all horizontal substitutes for God come down, we all get rocked and radically altered, Vertical Church. ~ James MacDonald

This is the highest honour of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with him, does he possess all his parts, or wish to be regarded as complete! Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body, he includes under the single name of Christ the whole Church. ~ John Calvin

A yogi is much more disciplined in his speech. Yogic tradition has it that speech must pass before three barriers prior to being uttered aloud. These barriers come in the form of three questions: Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? (112-113) ~ Prem Prakash

The first time I got onstage was when I was about 5 years old. It was at a church social, and I had a poem to recite. ~ Willie Nelson

The most consistent musical experience I had growing up was church music. ~ Amy Grant

I teach a Bible study for homeless guys in downtown Atlanta every week. Been doing it for years. That's the guys I'd rather go talk to. I'd rather take my act outside the church. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

Those who nod sagely and quote the tragedy of the commons in relation to environmental problems from pollution of the atmosphere to poaching of national parks tend to forget that Garrett Hardin revised his conclusions many times over thirty years. He recognized, most importantly, that anarchy did not prevail on the common pastures of midieval England in the way he had described [in his 1968 essay in 'Science']. The commoners--usually a limited number of people with defined rights in law--organized themselves to ensure it did not. The pastures were protected from ruin by the tradition of 'stinting,' which limited each herdsman to a fixed number of animals. 'A managed commons, though it may have other defects, is not automatically subject to the tragic fate of the unmanaged commons,' wrote Hardin, though he was still clearly unhappy with commoning arrangements. As with all forms of socialism, of which he regarded commoning as an early kind, Hardin said the flaw in the system lay in the quality of the management. The problem was alays how to prevent the managers from furthering their own interests. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guardians?

Hardin observed, crucially, that a successful managed common depended on limiting the numbers of commoners, limiting access, and having penalties that deterred.
[...]
None of Hardin's requirements for a successfully managed common is fulfilled by high-seas fishery regimes ~ Charles Clover

Since I was 12 or 13, I have been taking movie meetings finding a project right for me because I wanted to try it. Craig gave us the script - it was set in Wales, it is really British humour. I just loved it. ~ Charlotte Church

It is a cultural tradition that makes New Orleans what it is. It also represents the roots of American music and an important part of the African-American community in New Orleans. It unites people in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. It is absolutely critical to continue. ~ Bill Taylor

In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

You don't have to go to church to be spiritual, but there are certain times in your life that you know there is a presence of something very spiritual. ~ Tom Watson

So I have to create the whole thing afresh for myself each time. Probably all writers now are in the same boat. It is the penalty we pay for breaking with tradition, and the solitude makes the writing more exciting though the being read less so. One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with ones words. ~ Virginia Woolf

I come from a school of people, folk singers, and the tradition there is troubadours, and you're carrying a message. Now admittedly, our job is partly just to make you boogie, just make you want to dance. Part of our job is to take you on a little voyage, tell you a story. ~ David Crosby

Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one. ~ Samuel Butler

Study with purpose, both in church and in school. Write down your goals and what you plan to do to achieve them. Aim high, for you are capable ... ~ Thomas S. Monson

If the presence of God is in the church, the church will draw the world in. If the presence of God is not in the church, the world will draw the church out. ~ Charles Grandison Finney

However grand our sacramental downsittings and updressings may be, they remain only and precisely sacraments: real presences, under particular signs, of the happier order that faith can discover under any and all signs. They're a bit like the church. As long as we see them as an earnest of the kingdom, they're all right; when we put on airs and act as if they were the kingdom itself, they look just silly. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

My Heart burns with a never ending deep passion for Jesus Christ. My Heart longs and even aches for the American church to be in Revival ~ Joe Joe Dawson

It is only through the home that a people can become really good and truly great ... ~ Mary Church Terrell

When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God's purposes in and through his people. ~ Alan Hirsch

The door of the visible church is incomparably wider than the door of heaven (522)[.] ~ Richard Baxter

The religion of art, like the religion of politics, was born from the ruins of Christianity. Art inherited from the old religion the power of consecrating things and endowing them with a sort of eternity; museums are our temples, and the objects displayed in them are beyond history. Politics
or more precisely, Revolution
co-opted the other function of religion: changing human beings and society. Art was an asceticism, a spiritual heroism; Revolution was the construction of a universal church. ~ Octavio Paz

Out of monuments, names, words proverbs ... and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time. ~ Francis Bacon

If somebody wants to go to church because they like the ritual of it and want to sit in silence for a while one time a week, then that's great. If someone wants to go because they believe that God them and Jesus rose after three days, then that's great, too. ~ Patrick Wilson

Cream always rises to the top ... so do good leaders. ~ John Paul Warren

S-A-T-O-R
A-R-E-P-O
T-E-N-E-T
O-P-E-R-A
R-O-T-A-S

The palindrome means something like "The farmer Arepo works with his plow," with rotas, literally "wheels," referring to the back-and-forth motion that plows make as they till. This "magic square" has delighted enigmatologists for centuries ... The magic square also reportedly kept away the devil, who traditionally (so said the church) got confused when he read palindromes. ~ Sam Kean

Hammered into the Heart

In the Sufi tradition light and knowledge are reflected from heart to heart. The heart is the organ of the higher consciousness - the consciousness of the Self. Spiritual teachings can be reflected or impressed directly into the heart, bypassing the limitations of the mind. . . . A further part of the Sufi training is to bring the mind into the heart, the mind 'hammered into the heart' as the Sufis say, so that the teachings given to the heart can be assimilated into everyday consciousness. A mind that has been brought into the heart can understand the ways of oneness, which are often paradoxical, sometimes even nonsensical, to the rational self. ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

It was Sunday morning. I woke very early to a bright and cheery day, anxious to join my fellow Christians in this lovely garden of a land. The clerk in the hotel eyed me a little dubiously when I asked for a church. 'We don't have many of those, you know,' he said. 'Besides, you couldn't understand the language.'
'Didn't you know?' I said, 'Christians speak a kind of universal language.'
'Oh. What's that?'
'It's called "agape".'
'Agape? I never heard of it.'
'Too bad. It's the most beautiful language in the world. ~ Brother Andrew

...part of your responsibility in the body of Christ is to help set the pace for the church by listening and obeying and living Christ. ~ Francis Chan

The global jihad espoused by Osama bin Laden and other contemporary extremists is clearly rooted in contemporary issues and interpretations of Islam. It owes little to the Wahhabi tradition, outside of the nineteenth-century incorporation of the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya and the Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah into the Wahhabi worldview as Wahhabism moved beyond the confines of Najd and into the broader Muslim world.

The differences between the worldviews of bin Laden and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab are numerous.

Bin Laden preaches jihad; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab preached monotheism.

Bin Laden preaches a global jihad of cosmic importance that recognizes no compromise; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's jihad was narrow in geographic focus, of localized importance, and had engagement in a treaty relationship between the fighting parties as a goal.

Bin Laden preaches war against Christians and Jews; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab called for treaty relationships with them.

Bin Laden's jihad proclaims an ideology of the necessity of war in the face of unbelief; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab preached the benefits of peaceful coexistence, social order, and business relationships.

Bin Laden calls for the killing of all infidels and the destruction of their money and property; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab restricted killing and the destruction of property…

The militant Islam of Osama bin Laden does not have its origins in the teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and is not repre ~ Natana J. Delong-Bas

Liberalism itself, is, on all matters connected with Church and Education, only a kind of corporate and "respectable" ungodliness. ~ Henry Parry Liddon

Hipsters seek refuge in church, Our Lady of Perpetual Subculture. There is some discussion as to whether or not they are still cool but then they are calmed by the obscure location and the arrival of their kind. Keep the address to yourself, let the rabble fund it themselves. Wow, this crappy performance art is really making me feel no so terrible about my various emotional issues. ~ Colson Whitehead

What's true for churches is true for other institutions: the older and more organized they get, the less adaptable they become. That's why the most resilient things in our world - biological life, stock markets, the Internet - are loosely organized. ~ Gary Hamel

The university system, a gift of Western civilization to the world, was developed by the Catholic Church. ~ Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Straight Americans need an education of the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul. ~ Bruce Bawer

More than a father's daughter,

more than husband's spouse

your soul is here to know love,

your body yours to decide how and when

and with whom and under what circumstances

that happens. You owe nothing to no-one.



Your thoughts are more than parents

your morality greater than church

your nutrition more than food

your steps greater than toil,

your concerns are not whining

your fears are neither stupid nor vain

your heart is more than Mother

your value more than a face

your fingers more than service. ~ Marie Anzalone

Scripture is our norming norm and tradition is our normed norm and that in a doctrinal controversy Scripture alone has absolute veto power while The Great Tradition (orthodox doctrine) has a vote but not a veto. ~ Roger E. Olson

Anxious systems also fail to get a clear view of things. Embedded in their dread, they lose a sense of proportion. They have little awareness of what is happening and how it is being mutually maintained. Emotionally cramps the broader view. ~ Peter L. Steinke

Brand-new truths are probably not Truths. ~ John Piper

I think that food ties us to our community and our traditions, and it's the thing that makes us feel good and connected. ~ Kathy Freston

We also think this is a reminder of the long tradition of bipartisan foreign policy that has been the hallmark of America at moments of greatest need, and that's the kind of spirit that we hope will be reflected in our administration. ~ Barack Obama

I wish there really was such a thing as a Time-Clock Puncher, though. I wish some gigantic, surly, stone-fisted Soap Mahoney-type guy went around the world smashing every clock in sight till there weren't any more and people got so confused about when to go to the mill or school or church that they gave up and did something interesting instead. ~ David James Duncan

Love, its power and authority, always gets there first, comes to believe first, and always waits for the others, especially the leaders, to catch up! This is the reality of what happened among the disciples and the community of the Beloved Disciple, John, and those closest to Jesus, called His friends. They mature and develop differently from other disciples, and the community of the Church has to struggle with the fact that the last one anyone thought would be the leader was the one who betrayed Him and contributed to the dissolution of the disciples when Jesus was arrested and crucified. ~ Megan McKenna

There was nothing else to do but call upon the Creator,
praying, begging, pleading, bargaining - anything to make
him protect Xavier. I couldn't have him ripped away from
me like that. I could survive emotional turmoil; I could
survive the most intense physical torture. I could survive
Armageddon and holy fire raining down upon the earth, but I
could not survive without him. ~ Alexandra Adornetto

Children from like 8 and even up to the college age - Spider-Man appeals to a fairly broad demographic but, like I said, a mean age probably of 12 is a good mark - they process information so quickly and it's not because of attention deficit or short attention span. ~ Thomas Haden Church

It is not easy to get rid of weeds; but it is easy, by a process of neglect, to ruin your food crops and let them revert to their primitive state of wildness. [ ... ] In political civilization, the state is an abstraction and the relationship of men utilitarian. Because it has no roots in sentiments, it is so dangerously easy to handle. Half a century has been enough for you to master this machine; and there are men among you, whose fondness for it exceeds their love for the living ideals which were born with the birth of your nation and nursed in your centuries. It is like a child who in the excitement of his play imagines he likes his playthings better than his mother. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Only 13.7% of churches in America are consider multiethnic. This means that 86.3 % of churches are homogenous. ~ Derwin L. Gray

The Enlightenment (The beginning of) a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority. ~ David Deutsch

It was Dostoevsky, once again, who drew from the French Revolution and its seeming hatred of the Church the lesson that "revolution must necessarily begin with atheism." That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn