50 quotes found
"Go at it boldly, and you'll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid."
"I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I. It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order. Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from. This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on myself — a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves — I am not to fret myself, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears. I am not a free agent. Those with whom I am associated are not free agents. God is the one supreme command. He expresses Himself through me; He expresses Himself through them; we all."
"My small experience in the conquest of fear can be condensed into these four words: Calmly resting! quiet trust! That amid the turmoil of the time and the feverishness of our days it is always easy I do not pretend. Still less do I pretend that I accomplish it. I have said, a few lines above, that I tried. Trying is as far as I have gone; but even trying is productive of wonderful results."
"Bishops are not intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactured on one continent and fired into another as an act of aggression. The recent irregular ordination in Singapore is, in my opinion, an open and premeditated assault on Anglican tradition, catholic order and Christian charity. I ask for the prayers of the whole church for the Primates' Meeting that it may contribute to deeper comprehension, mutual trust, and godly quietness among its members and throughout the Communion."
"No young woman should be placed in circumstances such as to make marriage an only refuge from poverty or dependence upon her friends or a life of ennui"
"Christ has recognised and declared woman's equality with man"
"Truth is the daughter of God, and in all her attributes God-like and eternal. Truth never depreciates in value"
"We know as well as history can teach us that all religions are one and the same- all the outgrowth of man's moral nature, differing only according to the intelligence and advancement of the people among whom they originated"
"To know the Truth, to love the Truth, and to live the Truth is the whole duty of man."
"Every word of Truth proceeds from God, whether that Truth be written in the rocks and read by the geologist or written in the heavens and read by the astronomer or written in the heart of man or written in this old book"
"There is no divine Truth, and no impure Truth. There is no secular Truth, the Truth taught in the college or the school house is as sacred as Truth taught from the pulpit"
"A difficulty in seeking Truth is the notion that certain men are ordained of heaven to seek Truth for all mankind and that we are to accept their acquisitions in the place of seeking for ourselves. We can never attain Truth by proxy. By divine ordination every man is an original investigator of Truth. He denies his own reason who hands over his religious views and opinions to any priest or religious teacher… We are to accept nothing on the opinions of others. What another man has thought and believed, what a Church Council or synod has formulated is nothing to me, only that it may be a reason for personal investigation ending in acceptance or rejection as I may find it in harmony with reason and well established truth."
"It is a mistaken notion that all spiritual truth was given to the world in one complete system nearly 2000 years ago."
"Jesus' teachings were never set before his followers as a finality. God has dealt with Humanity as we deal with children. He has given to every…age Truths adapted to their development"
"The Church has become hostile to new ideas. If any doctrine came from the priesthood the church would hear it and heed it, but if it came from an out of the way place, like Nazareth, they would scorn and persecute it. It was churchmen who put Jesus to the cross. In Luther's time when he hurled his advanced ideas like bombshells into the Roman Church, it was the churchmen of his day that sought his death. In Wesley's time, though he preached the purest form of spiritual Truth that was proclaimed to his age, yet the churchmen of his time drove him out and he had to preach in graveyards and coal mines and on the markets."
"New truths in science are often condemned and 25 years ago it was very common and very popular for preachers to sneer at the evolution theory, but to-day it is no longer sneered at, for there is arising in all intelligent minds who have candidly examined the evidence the conviction that this was the method of creation, and no scientist of note to-day denies it."
"The scientific fact of clairvoyance, telepathy, soul-flight, psychometry, and prophecy are well established by incontrovertible evidence yet to mention them in certain circles is to ostracize yourself."
"Why should old interpretations of scripture, all of which reflect the ignorance and prejudice and limitations of the age in which they were formulated, bar the way to progress in our modern day?"
"Have we not the right to our own views, and own interpretations, and own creeds, and own Truths equal to those that proceeded us? Must we forever wear the cast-off garments of past ages?"
"Why should inspiration be limited to one past age? If Truth came to Paul 1900 years ago it can come to you today. After all, Heaven is as near to-day, God is as loving and as kind to-day, and truth as abundant to-day, as in the ages when men are said to have possessed inspiration."
"Is God asleep that he should cease to be all that he was to the prophets of the past?"
"I have found a truth that humanity needs, that brings unspeakable joy to human hearts and homes, that brightens all the life, that assuages sorrow, that dispels care, that kills the materialistic spirit of our age, and lifts mankind into noble thought and life"
"The use of the divine gift of common sense would teach the opponents of the philosophy that what was shown to be fraud was not spiritualism and that a doctrine that thrives in the midst of the bitterest oppression and grows in the fire of persecution has some measure of truth in its keeping to give it vitality"
"We live in a period of transitions. Old interpretations of the scripture are giving way to new ones. Old conceptions of the method of creation are no longer popular"
"The creeds are not changing as rapidly as the beliefs of the people, nor as rapidly as most men of progressive mind desire"
"The heterodoxy of one age will become the orthodoxy of the next"
"It is easy to see what is heresy today, but who can tell what will be heresy tomorrow"
"I do not believe in infallible men, nor in an infallible church, nor in an infallible book"
"When I looked at the conduct of the whites who were called Christians, and saw them drunk, quarreling, and fighting, cheating the poor Indians, and acting as if there was no God, I was led to think there could be no truth in the white man's religion, and felt inclined to fall back again to my old superstitions."
"I first said "No; that is the white man's God, and the white man's religion; and that God would not have anything to do with the Indians." …I thought that God could only understand English... I then met with Peter Jones, who was converted a few months before me, and, to my surprise, I hear him return thanks, at meal, in Ojibway. This was quite enough for me. I now saw that God could understand me in my Ojibway, and therefor went far into the woods and prayed, in the Ojibway tongue."
"YOU ARE DIVINE. This is the truth for you, but it remains meaningless on earth until you know it. “Knowing” is the state of realized experience, and this occurs as your divine nature is given expression in thought, word and deed."
"SUPREME VALUE CENTERS IN LOVE. All true values are differentiations of this supreme value. The means by which love is differentiated into the infinite variety of its divine nature may be called “truth.” Life is the evidence of the truth of love in action."
"THE COMING OF YOUR DIVINE SELF on earth dissolves the unreal state as darkness is caused to vanish before the rising sun."
"The transmutation is occurring all around us — the transmutation which is primarily taking place in the consciousness of human beings, in the de–structuring of the human consciousness. The structured forms are burned. The substance composing those structured forms is transmuted into spirit — a quality of substance within the scope of this world of space and time which may then take form according to the design inherent in the irresistible force, spiritual form."
"Nothing ever does happen in the future and nothing ever has happened in the past; the only happening is in the present moment. And yet people everywhere are so wrapped up in the past and future that the present moment tends to be overlooked. Yet this present moment is the only moment of reality; everything else is imagination. Now is the only time we can live. We can't live in the past, although some attempt it, and we can't live in the future. We live now or not at all."
"Out of the nowhere of the dimensionless state comes the differentiation of the sound of the trumpet in the dimensional state, in the now here of the dimensional state. That sound is generated first in the mouthpiece of the trumpet, and the vibration is taken up by the air contained in the whole trumpet and by the trumpet itself. This portrayal indicates a oneness, first of all between the trumpeter and the trumpet; and then the oneness between the air (the substance in the trumpet), the trumpet itself, and the sound that is being propagated."
"Never underestimate the power of spiritual expression. It is the power of fusion, bringing and holding all things together in the true design in the creative process."
"From age to age, Love's word rings forth, “The truth is true and all is well, Unconquerable life prevails.”"
"The body of the mother is the physical planet. The physical planet therefore symbolizes the mother. The body of the father is the sun. The sun symbolizes the father. Neither the sun nor the earth are the father and the mother, but they are forms representing them."
"There is the necessity for the spiritual point of focus to be embodied on earth. This is the one thing that has been lacking."
"I am incarnate—and we all may share this awareness, seeing that there is but one God and one identity—I am incarnate in the earth, in all the animate forms of the earth, and in my human form. My human form was created so that I might be consciously incarnate. Being consciously incarnate, I may be unrestricted in the expression of myself and in the fulfilment of my purposes according to my will."
"The spirit of truth says, “Remember.” And you will, if you accept the spirit of truth, allow the spirit of truth to be your expression."
"The United Church is the only denomination in the world that could declare the Bible is not the authoritative word of God for all time. And that needs to be said by a major recognized denomination in order to undermine every single statement that is made by any religious extremist group — that their document, whether it’s the Bible, the Qur’an or the Bhagavad Gita, is not a divinely authored piece from some supernatural source."
"What people kept saying is how can a minister who says she doesn’t believe in God be a minister in the Christian church?"
"We were looking for someone deemed to be progressive-thinking. [West Hill as a congregation that wanted to] explore new roads in its spiritual journey."
"Anecdotally my sense is there are a lot of ministers who maybe wouldn’t say it as forcefully as Gretta would, but at the end of the day they don’t really believe in anything resembling traditional Christianity."
"You are stealing the tradition of a noble religion and using it when you are preaching the exact opposite of what they believe"
"A minister who is not suitable, cannot be effective. To assess suitability, the review committee may ask the minister to answer the ordination questions again, starting with: Do you believe in God?"
"Gretta has called herself 'an atheist minister'. While that language is startling to some, the Christian academy knows exactly what she is saying. To refer to oneself as an 'atheist' does not mean that one is asserting that there is no God; it means that the 'theistic' definition of God is no longer operative or believable."
"Whether or not Gretta Vosper is a minister is a decision that is made by a regional body called a conference, and Gretta Vosper is not in London Conference, which is the conference I serve"