Christian Leaders

"One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend."

"We must first experience the kingdom if we are even to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire. Christian freedom lies in service, Christian equality is equality before God, and neither can be achieved through the coercive efforts of liberal idealists who would transform the world into their image."

"Christians know that Christianity is simply extended training in dying early. That is what we have always been about."

"Ralph Wood argues quite persuasively that the Christian vision of the world is fundamentally comic. Drawing on the insights of Karl Löwith, Wood observes that because Christians do not, as the ancients did, regard the universe as eternal or divine but as created, comedy is made possible by the acknowledgment of the sheer contingency of all that is."

"We are willing to worship a God only if God makes us safe. Thus you get the silly question, How does a good God let bad things happen to good people? Of course, it was a rabbi who raised that question, but Christians took it up as their own. Have you read the Psalms lately? We're seeing a much more complex God than that question gives credit for."

"Consider the problem of taking showers with Christians. They are, after all, constantly going on about the business of witnessing in the hopes of making converts to their God and church. Would you want to shower with such people? You never know when they might try to baptize you."

"Next week, Graham's corpse will lie in state at the Capitol rotunda – only the fourth private citizen to be so honored, and the first since Rosa Parks in 1995. This is a disgrace. But in a certain way, it's also right and fitting – as oddly appropriate as Graham's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. If Billy Graham was, ultimately, a conniving hypocrite with a layman's grasp of the Bible and a supernatural lust for earthly power, he was also a quintessential American success story. He was not so much "America's pastor" as its greatest evangelical entrepreneur – the man who launched a whole separatist (and lucrative) Christian media culture, who laid the foundations for megachurches and prosperity ministries, who brought Jesus back into American politics. He was a public-relations savant, a shameless sycophant who whispered sweet nothings to power in lieu of hard truths. He demonstrated what fortunes could be made, and what human glory could be attained, by transforming evangelical Christianity into a patriotic corporate entity. If that's not American, by God, what is?"

"“Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had just started to implement his policy of nonalignment in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Though India was a democratic nation, Nehru had been profoundly influenced by Fabian socialism and, in fact, was sympathetic to Marxism. His concept of “nonalignment” and “neutralism” made him unwilling to be a pawn of Washington against Moscow. India, however, was by far the most important of the nations of the “third world” (another Nehru coinage) that had not yet succumbed to Communist Party rule, and Delhi’s sympathy toward Moscow not only rankled Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, but also it frankly worried him. With Graham’s India crusade followed by just two months the triumphant visit to Delhi by Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, the religious event also had important implications for American diplomacy”. ... The book says, “This was but the first of many occasions US administrations found it useful to capitalize or piggyback on Graham’s evangelistic activities and indeed his prominence as a worldwide evangelist. In decades to come, not only did his crusades have the indirect effect of helping to bring down totalitarian regimes, but, on occasion, Graham served as an unofficial emissary for American presidents to world leaders with whom the US government was unable otherwise to have direct contact”."

"In 1972, Billy Graham returned to India. The Hindu on 24th November 1972 published a report that read as follows: The noted American evangelist, Dr. Billy Graham, to-night expressed the hope that his visit to this country would help improve relations between India and the United States. Dr. Graham, who was talking to newsmen at the airport here on his arrival from Kohima, was asked if he was carrying any message from President Nixon for Mrs. Indira Gandhi. “I am sorry, I can’t answer that,” he replied. Dr. Graham, a close friend of Mr. Nixon, is scheduled to meet Mrs. Gandhi on Monday. Dr Graham said the Indian Government had gone out of the way in permitting him to visit Nagaland. “I am grateful for this,” he added. During his stay in the capital, he will also call on the President, Mr. V.V. Giri. Earlier, talking to newsmen at Calcutta airport, Dr Graham said he had talks with Mr Nixon twice before he left for India. “I love India and I want the United States and India to become very close friends. This is necessary because we need each other for our mutual interests,” he said."

"“Billy,” John said, “you are on your way to India, a country that has no conception of God. You will need a special approach to break into people’s thinking, because they know nothing of the Bible or God. Do you have such an approach in mind?” Admitting that I didn’t, I suggested that we make that issue a matter of concentrated prayer."

"Our purpose in going to India was to preach in Nagaland, an isolated area tucked in the mountainous, jungle-covered northeast corner of India near the Burmese border. The area was home to a dozen separate tribes, each with its own dialect and often with a history of headhunting. Tensions among Nagaland’s tribes, and an armed guerrilla movement bent on independence from India, made it a highly unstable area. During Akbar Abdul-Haqq’s crusade five years before in Nagaland’s largest town (and capital), Kohima, three people had been killed during an assassination attempt against the Indian government’s chief representative."

"On one hand, because of Nagaland’s instability, very few foreigners were granted government permission to visit the area. On the other hand, Nagaland was home to one of the largest concentrations of Christians in India; at the time of our visit, more than half the population of 500,000 were Christians, almost all living in villages. November 1972 marked the hundredth anniversary of the coming of Baptist missionaries to Nagaland, and we were invited to Kohima as part of that celebration."

"Almost miraculously, the Indian government in New Delhi granted a permit for us to enter Nagaland in late November. This permission was in response to an appeal from a delegation headed by the Reverend Longri Ao and other church leaders from Nagaland. (Assisting them was a gifted young Indian clergyman named Robert Cunville, who was head of the North East India Christian Council and had been invited to be director of youth evangelism for the World Council of Churches; he later joined our Team as an evangelist and has had a wide ministry not only in India but in many other parts of the world as well.)"

"[S]ome people do hope God will reward them for their generosity (or for some other good deed they’ve done), either by blessing them right now or by granting them eternal life. Lurking in the back of their minds is the idea that at the last judgment, God will weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds, and if they have more good deeds than bad deeds then God will let them into heaven. This, however, is a serious misunderstanding of what the Bible actually teaches. The Bible says that God is absolutely holy and pure, and even one sin — just one — would be enough to keep us out of heaven."

""What is the greatest surprise you have found about life?” a university student asked me several years ago. "Its brevity" I replied without hesitation. … Time moves so quickly, and no matter who we are or what we have done, the time will come when our lives will be over. As Jesus said, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). … Life is short, and every day is a gift from God."

"I don’t know the future, but I do know this: the best is yet to be! Heaven awaits us, and that will be far, far more glorious than anything we can ever imagine. I know that soon my life will be over. I thank God for it, and for all He has given me in this life. But I look forward to Heaven. I look forward to the reunion with friends and loved ones who have gone on before. I look forward to Heaven’s freedom from sorrow and pain. I also look forward to serving God in ways we can’t begin to imagine, for the Bible makes it clear that Heaven is not a place of idleness. And most of all, I look forward to seeing Christ and bowing before Him in praise and gratitude for all He has done for us, and for using me on this earth by His grace — just as I am."

"In my travels, I have found that those who keep heaven in view remain serene and cheerful in the darkest day. If the glories of Heaven were more real to us, if we lived less for material things and more for things eternal and spiritual, we would be less easily disturbed by this present life. A friend told me about stopping on a street corner in London and listening to a man play the bagpipes. He was playing "Amazing Grace" and smiling from ear to ear. My friend asked him if he was from Scotland, and he answered, “No sir, my home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”"

"Billy Graham details his 1972 trip to India and his meeting with Indira Gandhi during that trip in his autobiography. About his mandate to meet Indira Gandhi, Graham writes: President Nixon, at the request of the American consul in New Delhi, had personally asked me to seek an interview with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in part to find out from her what kind of ambassador she wanted from America. He asked me to notice every single thing about her—the movement of her hands, the expression on her face, how her eyes looked. “When you’ve finished the interview,” he said to me, “go to the American embassy and dictate your report to me.” And so, when I visited with Mrs. Gandhi in the Indian capital, I put the question to her. She told me she wanted someone who understood economics, who had the ear of the President, and who had influence in Congress. This I reported to the President. He later appointed Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Whether my report influenced the President’s decision, I never learned."

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."

"God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with."

"Either communism must die or Christianity must die because it's actually a battle between Christ and anti-Christ."

"I have come out in favor of birth control but sterilization is a crippling of a vital body function."

"Many Indians seem to have the idea that Christianity is a western religion. That is wrong. There were Christian churches in India before America was discovered."

"Of course, the human soul will always have the power to reject God, for choice is essential to its nature, but I cannot believe that anyone will finally do this.”"

"It may take some eons, as we think of time, or even many reincarnations, but we have the highest authority for believing that the Great Shepherd himself will not be content if one of his sheep is missing from the final fold."

"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened."

"The life of Jesus was a translation into humanity, of the life of God, as far as man is capable of discerning the latter. In the same way, the church is not something born on earth which grew to divine proportions and significance, but a translation into terms of space and time of the divine community eternally existent in heaven.”"

"There is not one judgment day, surely, but a thousand! Every time we confront beauty, truth, goodness or love, our response to them judges us."

"Hell may last as long as sinful humanity lasts, but that does not mean that any individual will remain in it all that time. The time of purging can only continue until purification is reached. And a God driven to employ an endless Hell would be a God turned fiend himself, defeated in his original purpose."

"No words used in the Gospels can legitimately be twisted to mean unending punishment, and indeed, such an expression is self-contradictory. The main motive of punishment surely is to reform the sufferer; in school, to make a better scholar; in the State, to make a better citizen. If the punishment goes on forever when does the sufferer benefit by the punishment or use the lesson he has learned so painfully? If Hell were endless it would be valueless."

"Faith in God includes faith in those who help God."

"Commitment to great causes makes great men."

"I believe that all men, whatever their religion or lack of it, pass on into another phase of being, to another class in God’s school."

"Death, we are told, should be left to God. We do not leave birth to God. We space births. We prevent births. We arrange births. Man should learn to become the lord of death as well as the master of birth."

"It seems strange indeed that so practical and pressing a truth as that of purgatory should be dismissed, while so remote and impractical a doctrine as the absolute everlastingness of hell should be insisted on."

"Behavior that was innocent and amoral on the animal level of man’s development became immoral as man moved upward on his evolutionary path, and, assisted by prophets, seers and saints, higher and higher moral peaks were discerned. When we come to Jesus, the moral demand made upon man by his new insights was impossible to reach were it not that he offered power to become and claimed himself to be the Way as well as the Goal."

"He revealed what God must be like and what man may be like, and he pledged himself to stand by his little brothers until they too achieved God’s age-long purpose on this minor planet; until all the sons of men realized their possibilities and became the sons of God."

"I know we can go too far and try to whitewash what is plain sin; to seek to excuse really bad behavior and to account for it in terms of infantile environment, traumatic experiences, psychological complexes and the like. But I regard it as a sign of progress that we are at last doubting the value of the cane and tawse in the schoolroom and the birch and the hangman’s rope in the jails."

"Man’s tragic apostasy from God is not something which happened once for all, a long time ago. It is true in every moment of existence. . . . It involves no scientific description of absolute beginnings. Eden is on no map, and Adam’s fall fits no historical calendar. Moses is not nearer to the Fall than we are, because he lived three thousand years before our time. The Fall refers not to some datable, aboriginal calamity in the historical past of humanity, but to a dimension of human experience which is always present—namely, that we who have been created for fellowship with God repudiate it continually; and that the whole of mankind does this along with us. Every man is his own ‘Adam,’ and all men are solidarily ‘Adam.’ Thus, Paradise before the Fall, the status perfectionis, is not a period of history, but our ‘memory’ of a divinely intended quality of life, given to us along with our consciousness of guilt."

"Some laymen feel that, out of loyalty, they ought to cling to ancient ways of expressing the Christian faith and that to doubt is to sin. But doubt is not the enemy of faith. It is the growing edge of faith. . ."

"Let us never imagine that faith can ever be furthered by suppressing doubt, let alone by suppressing evidence. All truth is one, and religion must be as eager as science to know the truth as far as man can perceive it. If something we have treasured as truth is really contradicted by unanswerable evidence, then in the name of the God of truth we must part with it however venerable it may be. Let us never suppose that we can take over faith from our parents without examination, or believe anything merely because another says it is true. But let us not be content with a static agnosticism which never rouses itself to make inquiry. Let us examine the evidence and then in complete loyalty to its trend make a leap both of intellect and will, and, committing ourselves, acting as if all were established, try out in life the faith that carries us on wings after the hard road of fact and reason stops."

". . . I believe that the annihilation of even one soul spells a defeat of God’s purposes, a denial of Christ’s teaching and a closure of heaven against those who love the lost soul."

". . . I have excluded the idea of the Fall of Man. . . man has made a long climb from the status of the animal until the time when he could recognize right from wrong. That recognition, at first, was based on behavior that paid, that avoided the retribution of the tribe and the gods, and that enabled the primitive society to function. Yet, however lowly in origin—and I am referring to a period centuries before right seemed to be worth following simply because it was right, or because man’s dignity and status were sustained by doing right; centuries before right was conceived as pleasing to God because he was holy and righteous—that earliest recognition of a difference between right and wrong was an immense advance, even though wrong was chosen."

"The eyes would soon grow dim if they had no correspondence with light. The lungs would soon perish without any correspondence with air. The mind that has no relation with truth is said to be in a state of unbalance, and the spirit too must have some traffic with God, its relevant Environment, if it is to maintain its fullest health.”"

"We must go on praying, for sometimes prayer seems so to alter mental attitudes and reinforce mental energies as to strengthen the patient’s resistance to disease and even overcome it, and in any case to sustain him in the bearing of it. But we must not lose faith when God does not answer prayer in the way we think we should if we had his power."

"It is so very important to remember that, while all healing is of God, we must find the answer to the question, "Which is the most relevant way of cooperating with God in the case of this particular patient? It may be surgery, or medicine, or psychiatry, or prayer. Prayer is not relevant in many cases, save as an aid to the patient’s mental condition, and God is not going to make of prayer an easy magic, just because we have not used our human resources of money and men in wiser ways.”"

"The idea that God’s Providence means that he looks after those who serve him by a special use of his power in terms of favoritism is an immoral idea and insulting to both man and God. No true Christian wants to opt out of the trials that beset others, and no worthy idea of God could include his establishment of a kind of insurance scheme by which, if God be worshiped, cancer, for example, could be avoided."

"Death itself seems not to make a great difference. Certainly man’s eternal destiny is not determined by the act—often the accident—of dying. Spiritually, and apparently mentally, he goes on where he left off. . ."

"No honest mind can exclude doubt, or ignore criticism, or shut its ears against reason. And if we could do these things we should be left, not with faith, but with a head-in-the-sand superstition."

"I feel sorry for the man who has never known the bracing thrill of taking a stand and sticking to it fearlessly. Moral courage has rewards that timidity can never imagine. Like a shot of adrenaline, it floods the spirit with vitality."