Methodists

"The factor that makes us question the authority of the expert is that we are personally emotionally involved in the result."

"I hold that the self-authentication of truth, or, in other words, seeing, is the authority, and the only authority there is in the field of religion."

"Men glibly turn to an infallible Bible, or an infallible church, or an infallible Pope, or an infallible conscience, or an infallible Christ, and say that that authority is sufficient for them and enables them to accept truth. I believe all that kind of talk is false. It is false psychology or a failure of insight, and it is the fruit of mental laziness; a refusal to think things through. The most important convictions in religion cannot really be reached on the word of another. We can assent to propositions out of laziness of thought, or a desire to please, or an inability to argue, but one of the reasons why, in a crisis, men often feel let down by their religion is that they glibly assented to this or that, and falsely called their assent ‘belief.’"

". . . there is only one authority. . . that is the authority which truth itself possesses when it is perceived to be true by the individual concerned. . . the alternative procedure, the delegation to external authority, must itself follow an individual’s subjective decision."

"Thought must be free to range as it likes over all phenomena and philosophy, unhampered by compulsions. A man cannot be bludgeoned by vulgar threats of damnation, into accepting that what other people say is true."

"Any man, to the extent to which he is good, reveals the nature of God."

"No argument or logic carries the same degree of conviction as insight, and it is the kind of conviction by which we know that dawn over the Alps on a perfect morning is beautiful. Argument cannot produce it and doubt cannot remove it. The outward beauty meets the inward recognition and in our hearts we know."

"We still make of prime importance matters about which Jesus said nothing. How can a matter be fundamental in a religion when the founder of the religion never mentioned it?"

"When I really believe a thing, I mean that its truth possesses me. . . Truth is self-authenticating, and when it possesses me, nothing can shake it from its enthronement until some greater truth displaces it or gives it less prominence."

"When people said to me, ‘I should like to be a member of the City Temple, what must I believe?’ I used to say, ‘Only those things which appear to you to be true.’"

"In the cases of nearly all of us, what our fathers were, we are, and we make up our reasons afterwards."

"If Christ can—and he does—hold in utter loyalty the hearts of St. Francis and John Knox, of Calvin and St. Theresa, of General Booth and Pope John, of Billy Graham and Albert Schweitzer, who hold irreconcilably different beliefs about him, how can belief and uniformity of belief be vitally important? Further, where in the Gospels are we ever told that Christ demanded belief in some theological proposition before he would admit a seeker into discipleship?"

"The essential in Christianity, past, present and future, is loving Christ and one another, and if the Quaker finds God in the silence and the Salvation Army in the band, the Roman Catholic in the Mass and the Baptist in immersion; if the High Anglican likes incense and ceremonial, and the Methodist puts his emphasis on personal experience, the fellowship of the authentic class meeting and Charles Wesley’s hymns, why talk of disunity?"

"Every denomination within organized Christianity contains a valuable truth, but none contains all truth. Each mirrors at its best something of Christ but all are only caricatures of him."

"Christianity is a love relationship with Christ far below—or above, if you like—differences of belief or different ways of worshiping, far above differences of language or of color."

"Each thinker has the right to do what Paul did, to set forth truth as he sees it, in the thought-forms of his own day and generation, as long as he does not willfully distort truth merely to fit his own ideas."

"As I see it, all questions regarding the factual accuracy of Biblical statements—notably such ‘miraculous’ events as Virgin Birth, Resurrection, etc.—are wholly irrelevant to the true issues. Indeed, I should go so far as to say myself that the whole value of the Gospel story to mankind—and it is very great—lies not in its historical but in its legendary, mythical, or ‘typical’ character. It is not, I think, the Sermon on the Mount—or at least not this alone—that constitutes the peculiar contribution of Christianity to human thought, for very similar maxims are to be found elsewhere, and in any event could be deduced from first principles. It is to be found, rather, in the affirmation that all that is best and highest in man, as typified in the person of Jesus, is bound to arouse opposition, is often persecuted and apparently destroyed—yet is in fact indestructible and does perennially ‘rise again’, triumphant over seeming disaster."

"Though not as important as loving, believing certainly matters. It matters so much that, if it has any relevance to the business of living, it must be born in the individual mind, not thrust by church authorities on others."

"Why do men hug words to their hearts after the living truth has long since fled from them?"

"I believe passionately that Christianity is a way of life, not a theological system with which one must be in intellectual agreement. I feel that Christ would admit into discipleship anyone who sincerely desired to follow him, and allow that disciple to make his creed out of his experience; to listen, to consider, to pray, to follow, and ultimately to believe only those convictions about which the experience of fellowship made him sure."

"Since I have talked with many self-styled * atheists, I have come to believe that the true species does not exist, and that atheism, so-called, is either an emotional deviation in the same category as neurotic illness and with a similar causation, or else the denial of the existence of a mythical figure who certainly does not exist."

"In fact, many professing agnostics are nearer belief in the true God than are many conventional church-goers who believe in a body that does not exist whom they miscall God."

"Traditionalists may be shocked by the opinions expressed here; others will come to welcome them. Regardless of your own views, The Christian Agnostic demands to be read and pondered."

"It is from this viewpoint that he writes in this unconventional book. He makes a strong case for his contention that loyalty to Christ and to his spirit can go hand in hand with the rejection of unlikely theological dogma and creed."

"Dr. Weatherhead contends that the theological demands of Christianity are a barrier to an honest participation by a great number of people and that many agnostics are much closer to belief in the true God than many churchgoers."

"God buries his workmen, but carries on his work."

"Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down, Fix in us thy humble dwelling, All thy faithful mercies crown; Jesu, thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love thou art, Visit us with thy salvation, Enter every trembling heart."

"Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?"

"Other refuge have I none; Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, ah, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me! All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing."

"One family — we dwell in Him, One church above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream of death."

"Depth of mercy! — can there be Mercy still reserved for me? Can my God His wrath forbear? Me, the chief of sinners, spare?"

""CHRIST the LORD is ris'n To-day," Sons of Men and Angels say, Raise your Joys and Triumphs high, Sing ye Heav'ns, and Earth reply."

"And can it be, that I should gain An Int'rest in the Saviour’s blood! Dy'd He for Me? ---- who caus'd his Pain! For Me? ---- who him to Death pursu'd! Amazing Love!  how can it be That Thou, my GOD shouldst die for Me?"

"Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high. Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide; O receive my soul at last."

"Come, Desire of nations, come, Fix in us thy humble home; Rise, the woman's conquering Seed, Bruise in us the serpent's head. . . . Adam's likeness, Lord, efface; Stamp thine image in its place. Second Adam from above, Reinstate us in thy love."

"Hail the heavenly Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings, Risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by, Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth."

"Hark how all the welkin rings, "Glory to the Kings of kings; Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!" Joyful, all ye nations, rise. Join the triumph of the skies. Universal nature say "Christ is born today!""

"When asked, "So, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?": "I'm going to be a jockey.""

"He had more on his mind than his mind could hold."

"I wouldn't call the Prime Minister gutless. That's all that's left of him."

"Greens are not expected to be anything but nice."

"After that, whenever I drove past Mangakahia, I would empty my ashtray — and I was a heavy smoker in those days — on the road outside the hall."

"An itinerant masseur, massaging the politically erogenous zones."

"The statement which has been made by the Leader of the Opposition was that the intelligence has stopped. I don't know whether that was a personal confession or whether it was a statement of position."

"They couldn't, in the National Party, run a bath and if either the deputy leader or the leader tried to, Sir Robert would run away with the plug."

"Death is very, very terminal."

"...a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism."

"We are an enemy of the nuclear threat and we are an enemy of testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. New Zealand did not buy into this fight. France put agents into New Zealand. France put spies into New Zealand. France lets off bombs in the Pacific. France puts its President in the Pacific to crow about it."

"If the American global strategy is dependent on the ability of nuclear ships to come to New Zealand, then God defend the world."

"I agreed with the prevailing opinion in the Labour Party about nuclear weapons; I went on ban-the-bomb marches in the 1960s and I have not changed my mind about nuclear deterrence since. But I found it hard to accept the Labour Party’s policy that required the exclusion of nuclear-powered ships. Given that nuclear energy exists it is the intention behind its use that matters. The weapons are made to destroy and we have to learn to live without them. The rest may be useful if properly managed. The management is an environmental issue and the inevitable exclusion of nuclear-powered vessels was not an appropriate basis for our foreign policy."