Reformed Christianity Quotes

Such rich features of Calvin's ecclesiology highlight how his work of reform was in large respect a reform of ecclesiastical culture. One can only imagine how differently the citizen of Geneva must have experienced the church before and after its reformation. Under Calvin's vision, as implemented in Geneva, Christianity now entailed a very different kind of worship, a very different place of word and sacraments, a very different idea of ecclesiastical discipline, and a very different conception of ecclesiastical government. This was a reformed Christianity, and a reformed Christianity meant a reformed church. ~ David VanDrunen

In my view, it is inappropriate for us to refer to our confession as the Reformed Faith. The reformed churches did not (and do not) believe that they were confessing the Reformed Faith, but that they were confessing the "undoubted Christian Faith" in their confession and catechisms. There is a reason that this wing of the reformation called itself "Reformed." Unlike the Anabaptists, Reformed churches understood themselves as a continuing branch of the catholic church. At the same time, the Reformed wanted to reform everything "according to the Word of God." Not only our doctrine, but our worship and life must be determined by Scripture and not by human whim or creativity. ~ Michael S. Horton

You and I live at a moment of history that is simultaneously terrible and wonderful. Terrible because of the condition of the society in which we are destined to live out our lives. Wonderful because of the unprecedented opportunities to make a difference in the destiny of a nation and the world. ~ Philip Lancaster

In the end, he said he judged the Bible to be a sound book. Nevertheless, he wondered why the white people were not better than they are, having had it for so long. He promised that just as soon as white people achieved Christianity, he would recommend it to his own folks. ~ Charles Frazier

The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life. ~ Adolf Hitler

Now, it is of course well known that Christ continually uses the expression 'imitators.' He never says that he asks for admirers, adoring admirers, adherents; and when he uses the expression 'follower' he always explains it in such a way that one perceives that 'imitators' is meant by it, that is not adherents of a teaching but imitators of a life ... ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Maybe every now and then I need something 'unbelievable' to happen to help make that which is 'believable' a place where I start, but not a place where I stop. ~ Craig D Lounsbrough

The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small. ~ Mother Teresa

America is the first great experiment in Protestant social formation. Protestantism in Europe always assumed and depended on the cultural habits that had been created by Catholic Christianity. ~ Stanley Hauerwas

Love is a sacred entity. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Christianity has always looked on sex as in some way indecent and sinful; and for that reason Christians cannot possibly associate a truly religious nature 'with an unsuppressed libido. But that is more than a prejudice.' ~ Lewis Browne

Christianity has lost its place at the center of American life. Christians must learn how to live the gospel as a distinct people who no longer occupy the center of society. We must learn to build relational bridges that win a hearing."7 ~ Hugh Halter

... Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me. ~ John Lennon

Christians walk as strangers in the world: They are untamed. They are free. To persevere with love, yet untamed by man, is often what leaves that open space for divine revelation when God so wills. ~ Criss Jami

Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down. ~ Tom Robbins

Even if you're going through hardships, it doesn't mean that God isn't with you, he doesn't love you, or he isn't watching out for you. He may be testing your faith, seeing if you'll turn TO him in your time of crisis or turn AWAY from him. And if you're a true Christian, then that means that you're his child, and he's your father. And in the end, children always turn to their parents, and they'll forever need them. Just as we will always need God in our life to survive, and live a life as a Christian. Your life may not me extravagant here, but it will be in heaven, where you can be in the Lord's lap. ~ No Longer Available

Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine. ~ William Carey

Morals, principles and laws are when faith is reduced to standards and those standards basically just bind us, and we become prejudicial, racist, self-serving when we're guided by these laws ... When a developed country uses Christianity in its policies, in government, in maintaining corporate wealth, that's a bastardized rendering of a faith. ~ Sufjan Stevens

Burn God's words into your heart, His thoughts into your mind and His ways into your actions; and you'll have a Spirit-filled life. ~ Alisa Hope Wagner

Would you prefer to believe in a world created by mere chance that is utterly meaningless or would you prefer to believe in a world created with a purpose by an intelligent designer who loves you personally?
Complete nothingness and lack of hope vs a life lived incredibly joyfully ...
The answer is oh so clear to myself. ~ Anonymous

What is even more striking than the negational character of this political culture is the absence of robust and constructive affirmations. Vibrant cultures make space for leisure, philosophical reflection, scientific and intellectual mastery, and artistic and literary expression, among other things. Within the larger Christian community in America, one can find such vitality in pockets here and there. Yet where they do exist, they are eclipsed by the greater prominence and vast resources of the political activists and their organizations. What is more, there are few if any places in the pronouncements and actions of the Christian Right or the Christian Left (none that I could find) where these gifts are acknowledged, affirmed, or celebrated. What this means is that rather than being defined by its cultural achievements, its intellectual and artistic vitality, its service to the needs of others, Christianity is defined to the outside world by its rhetoric of resentment and the ambitions of a will in opposition to others. ~ James Davison Hunter

These days, when our companies are spinning their wheels and all the street lights are out, when our familiar routes are blocked and our maps are torn, this first signpost of post-Christendom directs us towards a prodigal Christianity that does not stand still in order to attract, does not sit in the seat of authority, and does not walk in the ways of the universal, but instead delights in the paths of the prodigal God ~ David E. Fitch

Orthodoxy is marked by sobriety, not by emotional enthusiasm. It is also marked by a quite "ordinary" persistence in living the humble, consistent life of Christ, not by seeking out extraordinary experiences, especially supernatural ones. ~ Andrew Stephen Damick

Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Clearly, when western cultures absorbed Christianity, they got an all-inclusive package: ancient Hebrew rituals and myths steeped in lost purpose, scantily recorded and broadly misinterpreted teachings of Jesus, revisions and distortions by Paul, twisted cosmology and superstitions supplied by priesthoods and bureaucratic/political distortions innate to man's traditional
endeavors. ~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The warnings given to the Hebrews against assimilating with the heathen were not more direct or explicit than are those forbidding Christians to conform to the spirit and customs of the ungodly. ~ Ellen G. White

They say a reformed roue makes the best husband, but, Oh! Didn't they tell you? Monsters can't be reformed ... ~ John Geddes

The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. ~ John Shelby Spong

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism wa ~ W.B. Yeats

Don't be afraid when you have to pray fervently because of your circumstances. God is wanting to do something great through you! ~ Stormie O'martian

Christianity in particular should be dubbed a great treasure-chamber of ingenious consolations, such a store of refreshing, soothing, deadening drugs has it accumulated within itself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

If ministry is not about compassion and passion, let it die. ~ Heidi Baker

I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. ~ Tony Campolo

Isn't it interesting that all of the biblical prophets and psalmists were poets? ~ Eugene H. Peterson

One solved nothing by waving the commandments like a bludgeon at people's heads. There was no point in shouting damnation at a man who was already walking himself to hell on his own two feet. One had to pray for the Grace of God and then go probing like a good psychologist for the fear that might condition him to repentance or the love that might draw him toward it. ~ Morris L. West

Christianity is a life, not a doctrine ... I'm not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Unlike Americans, who value egalitarian relationships, the Chinese recognize the hierarchical nature of relationships that have uneven power dynamics. Since it is easy for those with power to become paternalistic or patronizing when they serve others, we must learn Christ's humility and self-emptying. As we fill our different roles, we need to fulfill our responsibilities with love and a humbleness to serve. This Chinese understanding of humility serves as a helpful counterbalance to American approaches to urban ministry and development. As guests in any community, we need to approach our neighbors empty of expectations and plans. Instead, we must become reliant on the people of peace whom God sends out. When doing ministry, our joy and strength cannot be based on our own success or power. We receive these gifts only when being guests of the King and recognizing our limitations while in exile. ~ Russell Jeung

I had a lot of Hell that God needed to squeeze out of me, and believe me, sometimes when the Hell leaves you it screams at God on the way out. And when the pain from your past leaves you, sometimes you have to feel it again on the way out. There's nothing we can say or do that can separate us from God's love. ~ Brian Welch

Evangelicals usually fail to challenge the system not just out of concern for evangelism, but also because they support the American system and enjoy its fruits. They share the Protestant work ethic, support laissez-faire economics, and sometimes fail to evaluate whether the social system is consistent with their Christianity. ~ Christian Smith

Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."Luke 11:52 ~ Lailah Gifty Akita