religious-leaders-from-the-united-states

"For six years they did nothing to end abortion on demand or overturn Roe v. Wade."

"I think it's time that people who really do believe in the sanctity of human life ... should look for people that are not just talking the talk when it's election time."

":(in an interview following release from prison)"

":Freeman's sign in The Monastery"

"It is part of our doctrine that homosexuality and bisexuality are morally and socially equal to heterosexuality."

":Personal statement on website"

"The gut issue is that I'm black and I'm queer. That bothers a lot of people. So what we have is a vice squad that has a mandate to prosecute sin."

"Residential Area - by invitation only"

":(Said in response to legal persecution due to church and residence at same address, with alcohol disallowed at church)"

"We are all children of the same universe."

"Every church is a business enterprise. The question is pecuniary gain, if we have a profit here. The answer is no."

"In the eight years of the Monastery, nobody was ever stabbed, nobody was ever killed, nobody ever OD'd, nobody ever died. The only security we ever used were two people at the front door, the ushers. And yet we ran the gamut of black people, white people, young people, old people, gay people, straight people. All in one head space. The most integrated institution ever to exist in this city! Probably it will never exist again."

"We believed that God is in all forms of creativity. We're all joined in the same universe. No matter who you are, you're a creation of God. The Bible isn't the absolute document on the word of God. It can't be. It was written by man."

"My mind is a free mind. I'm not locked into territories that are traditional. And yes, it may get you into trouble, but it's the right way that we should mold a society. We can't go on the way we are."

"We view dancing as a form of worship and we teach through the medium of music."

"You know when the spirit's there, when the place is hopping and people are jumping and they're crazed and they're having fun and they're down and everybody's on one mental plateau, and they're traveling all together, and you have unity. That's the essence of life.... That was the whole experiment with the Monastery, as opposed to a cult -- this evil, wicked place where people are having sex."

"I can't even have a beer with friends at home."

"Science is God."

"It was hell, but for every negative stroke I've received in my life, I've had two positive strokes to counter it."

"I am a black homosexual minister of the Universal Life Church."

"Bob Larson is a fucking carny. He's a showman, like myself. He does what he does for ratings and to sell his fucking cult-shit videotapes and his cassettes to you, the weak-minded fuck. Okay? [...] Bob Larson has actually admitted this shit it to me. Bob Larson and me are actually kind of friends [...] Bob Larson does what he does to make fucking money to support his prostitute habits."

"Hinduism, the Eternal Way or Sanatana Dharma, has no beginning, therefore will certainly have no end. It was never created, and therefore it cannot be destroyed. It is a God-centric religion. The center of it is God. All of the other religions are prophet-centric. It is the only religion that has such breadth and depth. Hinduism contains the deities and the sanctified temples, the esoteric knowledge of inner states of consciousness, yoga and the disciplines of meditation."

"As women, we're nurturers by nature. We want to make sure everyone is happy. That's a good thing, but we also have to put ourselves on that happiness list."

"when you don't look at the good things around you, that you lose sight of all those good things. And you're not going to enjoy your life"

"Let me encourage you, if someone has wronged you, and you still get that cringing feeling on the inside when you see or think about that person, take it to God and allow Him to keep your heart soft and sensitive."

"Fear is the thief of opportunity! God hasn’t given you a spirit of fear, but He’s given you power, love and a sound mind. Be bold because He is with you!"

"The pressure you are facing is not going to break you. It’s going to make you."

"There are a lot of times that we feel like our hands are tied - 'I have no control over if I'm going to lose my job.' 'I have no control over if I'm going to be able to pay my bills.' You've got to realize that that's where your trust comes in. You have to trust God, and keep your hope, because your hope is what produces your faith."

"Sometimes God Presents Opportunities That Look Insignificant Or Rather Ordinary. Perhaps You Don't See How They Fit Into The Big Picture For Your Life. But If God Is Asking You To Do Something, He Has A Purpose For It."

"We all have circumstances and times when we may be tempted to complain, but find something to be grateful for instead. Studies show that people who practice gratefulness are happier people!"

"We only have a certain amount of energy for each day. If we use it for the wrong purpose, if we focus on the negative or dwell on whoever hurt us, then we’re not going to have the energy we need for the right purposes."

"It’s so important that we set the tone for the day. We have to resist the temptation to start off worried, thinking about what’s wrong and all we have to accomplish. Start the day in faith, casting your worries on the Lord, trusting that He’s guiding and directing your steps."

"In prying apart the stone layers of the rocks, the scientist is, in reality, opening the leaves of the past history of our world."

"You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stones! Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men, but how dare I cut my mother's hair? I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits will come to their bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers and be ready to meet them in the bosom of our mother."

"Nowhere in the Quran does it say punish homosexuals. And historians have also never found any case of the Prophet Muhammad dealing with homosexuality."

"When I graduated from high school, I hoped that one day gay Americans would be able to get married. And now here I am 45 years later officiating same-sex marriages—how can I not be optimistic that the future is bright?"

"I believe every person, no matter if I disagree with you or not, you have the right as a Muslim to have the proper spiritual [rites] and rituals provided for you. And whoever judges you that will be Allah’s decision, not me."

"Some people are uncomfortable with gays, but your discomfort with my sexuality should not translate into me having less rights as an American."

"The younger they are, the more tolerant and accepting they are of LGBT Muslims, there are even older Muslims who are now supportive, including a grandmother here and there."

"Some don’t believe that homosexuals can be pious. But we can be just as good at our faith as anyone else. We are simply different from other folks, not less committed to our faith."

"What is underlying Berdyaev's thinking is the fact that the creative impulse must be generated from a dissatisfaction with this world. The creative impulse wishes in its original outburst to see an end to this world; it is the beginning of a different world. In short, creativity is eschatological."

"There are two views which present themselves before the creative act. "The first is the end of this world and the beginning of a new; and the second is the process of strengthening and perfecting this world. They are respectively the outlook of revolutionary eschatology and that of evolutionary construction." The former is the way of transcendence, and the latter is the way of objectification. "By way of objectification the creative act is adjusted to the circumstance of this world and does not reach its final state, it is cut off short. By the way of transcendence the creative act breaks through to noumenal reality and sets its bearing upon the final transformation of the world." The way of objectification, however, so occupies our thoughts, cooling down the creative energy, that man loses sight of the way of transcendence; hence little attention is given to the eschatological side of creative activity."

"Self-loathing is a natural and a necessary consequence of those intellectual views of self that are implied in repentance."

"Repentance ... implies a conviction, that God is wholly right, and the sinner wholly wrong, and a thorough and hearty abandonment of all excuses and apologies for sin. It implies an entire and universal acquittal of God from every shade and degree of blame, a thorough taking of the entire blame of sin to self. It implies a deep and thorough abasement of self in the dust, a crying out of soul against self, and a most sincere and universal, intellectual, and hearty exaltation of God."

"Impenitence is a phenomenon of the will, and consists in the will's cleaving to self-indulgence under light. It consists in the will's pertinacious adherence to the gratification of self, in despite of all the light with which the sinner is surrounded. It is not, as has been said, a passive state nor a mere negation, nor the love of sin for its own sake; but it is an active and obstinate state of the will, a determined holding on to that course of self-seeking which constitutes sin, not from a love to sin, but for the sake of the gratification."

"When the claims of God are revealed to the mind, it must necessarily yield to them, or strengthen itself in sin. It must, as it were, gird itself up, and struggle to resist the claims of duty. This strengthening self in sin under light is the particular form of sin which we call impenitence."

"Whenever (a Christian) sins, he must, for the time being, cease to be holy. This is self-evident. Whenever he sins, he must be condemned; he must incur the penalty of the law of God ... If it be said that the precept is still binding upon him, but that with respect to the Christian, the penalty is forever set aside, or abrogated, I reply, that to abrogate the penalty is to repeal the precept, for a precept without penalty is no law. It is only counsel or advice. The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true ... In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground."

"Brethren, our preaching will bear its legitimate fruits. If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours in a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discrimination, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in religion, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it. Let us not ignore this fact, my dear brethren; but let us lay it to heart, and be thoroughly awake to our responsibility in respect to the morals of this nation. - The Decay of Conscience"

"Even if man were created a carnivorous animal, is there no way for him to outgrow it as he becomes more intelligent?"

"It is strange to hear people talk on humanitarianism, who are members of societies for prevention of cruelty to children and animals, and who claim to be God-loving men and women, but who, nevertheless, encourage by their patronage the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings of appetite."