Christianity

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

"There was a book written by Rabbi Kushner years ago called Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? and he went chapter after chapter after chapter trying to discuss why bad things happen to good people. And the book could have been very simple. The title would have been Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? You open the book and it should have said one thing: "There are no good people. There are no good people." Why do bad things happen to good people? There are no good people: "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Bad things will always happen because there are no good people; we are all sinners."

"So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.""

"In God’s eyes – listen – no one is a victim. We are all perpetrators of open rebellion, scandalous, blasphemous sin against God. We are all rebels, we are all obstinate, we are all stubborn... Here we have the critical fundamental principle of the gospel; no one is a victim. From God’s viewpoint, no one is a victim."

"Hesychasm, which is too often looked upon as a philosophico-mystical “curiosity” of purely historical interest, has its roots in Christianity as such, and ... it is not merely a rather special development of Christian spirituality, but its purest and deepest expression."

"Watchfulness is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart."

"A brother asked an elder, “What is hēsychia and what good does it do?”"

"Given all the ways – both explicit and subtle – in which hesychasm is profoundly embroidered into the fabric of contemporary monasticism at the Holy Mountain, it is thus justified to conclude that not only is hesychasm Athonite, but Athos too is fundamentally hesychast."

"Through hesychasm ... different parts of the Byzantine Empire were linked with each other and to its centre. In a way, hesychasm became a cultural tradition common to Greeks, Slavs and Romanians and assumed the role of an intermediary, analogous to the role played by the Cyrillo-Methodian movement of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries."

""When you pray", it has been wisely said by an Orthodox writer in Finland, "you yourself must be silent... You yourself must be silent; let the prayer speak". To achieve silence: this is of all things the hardest and the most decisive in the art of prayer. Silence is not merely negative - a pause between words, a temporary cessation of speech - but, properly understood, it is highly positive: an attitude of attentive alertness, of vigilance, and above all of listening. The hesychast, the person who has attained hesychia, inner stillness or silence, is par excellence the one who listens. He listens to the voice of prayer in his own heart, and he understands that this voice is not his own but that of Another speaking within him."

"O Glorious Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and Powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil."

"I cannot live with God and with men. The thousands and ten thousands of the heavenly hosts have but one will, while men have many. So I cannot leave God to be with men."

"The true intent of the New Testament verse about “rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” is not the meaning deduced by modem harmonizing interpretations, namely a positive recognition of the obligation to pay taxes, but rather the reverse, an absolute indifference to all the affairs of the mundane world."

"European Imperialism and European Christianity were twins. It is difficult to say whether the flag followed the cross or the cross followed the flag."

"With the Portuguese, Christianization was a state enterprise."

"Missionary activities… which became so prominent a feature of European relations with Asia were connected with Western political supremacy in Asia and synchronised with it. ... It may indeed be said that the most serious, persistent and planned effort of European nations in the nineteenth century was their missionary activities in India and China, where a large-scale attempt was made to effect a mental and spiritual conquest at supplementing the political authority already enjoyed by Europe. Though the results were disappointing in the extreme from the missionary point of new, this assault on the spiritual foundations of Asian countries has had far-reaching consequences in the religious and social reorganization of the people..."

"Early educational commissions also accorded high priority to religious and moral flavoring of instruction—something that was disappearing in Europe itself. The role of the Christian church in the educational process obviously needs special attention. The aries were as much part of the colonizing forces as were the explorers, traders, and soldiers. There may be room for arguing whether in a given colony the missionaries brought the other colonialist forces or vice versa, but there is no doubting the fact that missionaries were agents of colonialism in the practical sense, whether or not they saw themselves in that light. The imperialist adventurer Sir Henry Johnston disliked missionaries, but he conceded in praise of them that "each mission station is an exercise in colonisation." In Europe, the church had long held a monopoly over schooling from feudal times right into the capitalist era. By the late nineteenth century, that situation was changing in Europe; but, as far as the European colonizers were concerned, the church was free to handle the colonial educational system in Africa. The strengths and weaknesses of that schooling were very much to be attributed to the church."

"In 1454 he (Prince Henry the Navigator) received from the Pope Nicholas V the right to all discoveries up to India. The Bull, which is of fundamental importance and is the first of three which determines the Portuguese monopoly in the East, is quoted below:...‘We, after careful deliberation, and having considered that we have by our , apostolic letters conceded to King Affonso, the right, total and absolute, to invade, conquer and subject all the countries which are under rule of the enemies of Christ, Saracen or Pagan, by our apostolic letter we wish the same King Affonso, the Prince, and all their successors, occupy and possess in exclusive rights the said islands, ports and seas undermentioned, and all faithful Christians are prohibited without the permission of the said Affonso and his successors to encroach on their sovereignty. Of the conquests already made, or to be made, all the conquests which extend to Cape Bajador and Cape Non to the coast of Guinea and all the Orient is perpetually and for the future the sovereignty of King Affonso.’"

"The church's role was primarily to preserve the social relations of colonialism, as an extension of the role it played in preserving the social relations of capitalism in Europe. Therefore, the Christian church stressed humility, docility, and acceptance. Ever since the days of slavery in the West Indies, the church had been brought in on condition that it should not excite the African slaves with doctrines of equality before God. In those days, they taught slaves to sing that all things were bright and beautiful, and that the slavemaster in his castle was to be accepted as God's work just like the slave living in a miserable hovel and working twenty hours per day under the whip. Similarly, in colonial Africa, churches could be relied upon to preach turning the other cheek in the face of exploitation, and they drove home the message that everything would be right in the next world. Only the Dutch Reformed church of South Africa was openly racist, but all others were racist in so far as their European personnel were no different from other whites who had imbibed racism and cultural imperialism as a consequence of the previous centuries of contact between Europeans and the rest of the world."

"Although the missionary went to the foreign field to win soul for Jesus, the result of his labours also meant the extension of commerce. Trade would follow the banner of the Cross as readily as it would the Union Jack, the stars and stripes or any other national emblem and usually it cost a good deal less."

"The treaty clauses, in fact, wrote the ultimate doom of Christian activity in China. To have believed that a religion which grew up under the protection of foreign powers, especially under humiliating conditions, following defeat, would be tolerated when the nation recovered its authority, showed extreme shortsightedness. The fact is that the missionaries, like other Europeans, felt convinced in the nineteenth century that their political supremacy was permanent, and they never imagined that China would regain a position when the history of the past might be brought up against them and their converts. `The Church', as Latourette has pointed out, `had become a partner in Western imperialism.'"

"As early as 1496 her [England's] monarch granted a commission to the Cabots, to discover countries then unknown to Christian people, and to take possession of them in the name of the king of England... [Cabots were authorized to take possession of lands] notwithstanding the occupancy of the natives, who were heathens, and, at the same time, admitting the prior title of any Christian people who may have made a previous discovery."

"Yet here again, the western mind was not unanimous, or even quite sure of itself. Officially, the British empire, for instance, was not a proselytizing organization. The proclamation which replaced the East India Company by direct British rule began: ‘Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solaces of religion, We disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose Our convictions on any of Our subjects. . . .’ This prolegomena was only agreed after much argument. Again, the 1854 provision of state aid to Indian schools, from which missionary establishments chiefly benefited, was defended by Sir Charles Wood, first Viscount Halifax, with notable ambivalence, on the grounds that ‘it will strengthen our empire. But. . . even if the result should be the loss of that empire, it seems to me that this country will occupy a far better and prouder position in the history of the world, if by our agency a civilized and Christian empire should be established in India, than if we continued to rule over a people debased by ignorance and degraded by superstition.’"

"Inevitably, then, large-scale missionary effort became involved with colonialism and commerce. In Asian and African eyes it was inextricably involved. As the century progressed, Indian intellectuals, for instance, came to see Christianity as nothing more than an epiphenomenon of western political and commercial expansion."

"Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa, the well-known Gandhian economist, once observed, ‘‘The Western military has four wings: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Church.’’"

"Timothy Tseng reports that Christian theological engagements with race have been chequered. For the most part, Christians in history have accommodated the dominant views of human nature, whether the Great Chain of Being rooted in Aristotelian thought or the emancipated self rooted in the Enlightenment. Nevertheless, the church’s core affirmations about the imago dei, “one blood” origins of humanity, the universality of sin, the universal availability of salvation through Jesus Christ, and eschatological vision of the nations before the throne of God often challenged the racism that accompanied European expansionism."

"The Catholic Church of India started taking shape when Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) proclaimed two Bulls on June 18, 1452 conferring upon the “king of Portugal and his successors full authority to invade, conquer, subdue and subject all kingdoms and territories of the unbelievers, and to reduce these peoples to perpetual subjection as a sign of the triumph of the Catholic faith over its enemies.” He followed it up by another Bull on January 8, 1455 authorising “the king of Portugal und his successors to found in all these provinces conqured or yet to be conquered, churches, monasteries and other usage, and to convey thither ecclesiastical Person whether religious or secular or members of the recognised mendicant orders.”... On June 21, 1481, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) confirmed all the privileges given to the king of Portugal and his successors by the previous Popes. He added that "Spiritual power and authority from Cape Bojador and Nam as far as the Indies belongs to Portugal in Perpetuity,”” Finally, Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) issued the famous Bull, Inter Caetera on June 28, 1493, dividing the World between Spain and Portugal. In this arrangement, India fell to the share of Portugal, along with the whole of Africa, South East Asia and the Far East... Under the Padroado or the right of patronage granted by the Pope to the king of Portugal, “Portugal would exercise control over the dioceses, and this included keeping a watch on the finances provided for this purpose by the crown.” The king of Portugal was to appoint the bishops. The Pope was to confirm the appointments."

"Today, I rebel against orthodox Christianity, as I am convinced it has distorted the message of Jesus. He was an Asiatic whose message was delivered through many media, and when it had the backing of a Roman emperor, it became an imperialist faith as it remains to this day."

"The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame in any age of the earth."

"How peculiar is that policy, which reckons on the perpetuity of an Empire in the East, without the aid of religion…will flourish forever in the heart of Asia, by arms or commerce alone!"

"First send the missionaries, then send the merchants and send the army."

"The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people."

"I thought of many things. I thought of the fact that the British Empire exploited India. Think about it! A nation with four hundred million people and the British exploited them so much that out of a population of four hundred million, three hundred and fifty million made an annual income of less than fifty dollars a year. Twenty-five of that had to be used for taxes and the other things of life. I thought about dark Africa. And how the people there, if they can make a hundred dollars a year, they are living very well they think. Two shillings a day—one shilling is fourteen cents, two shillings, twenty-eight cents—that’s a good wage. That’s because of the domination of the British Empire. All of these things came to my mind, and when I stood there in Westminster Abbey with all of its beauty, and I thought about all of the beautiful hymns and anthems that the people would go in there to sing. And yet the Church of England never took a stand against this system. The Church of England sanctioned it. The Church of England gave it moral stature. All of the exploitation perpetuated by the British Empire was sanctioned by the Church of England. But something else came to my mind. God comes in the picture even when the Church won’t take a stand. God has injected a principle in this universe. God has said that all men must respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, “And if you don’t do that, I will take charge.” It seems this morning that I can hear God speaking. I can hear Him speaking throughout the universe, saying, “‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ And if you don’t stop, if you don’t straighten up, if you don’t stop exploiting people, I’m going to rise up and break the backbone of your power. And your power will be no more!” And the power of Great Britain is no more. I looked at France. I looked at Britain. And I thought about the Britain that could boast, “The sun never sets on our great Empire.” And I say now she had gone to the level that the sun hardly rises on the British Empire. Because it was based on exploitation. Because the God of the universe eventually takes a stand."

"Historian Steve Newcomb writes about what came to be known as the Christian Law of Nations , which asserted that Christian nations had a divine right, based on the Bible, to claim absolute title to and ultimate authority over any newly 'discovered' Non-Christian inhabitants and their lands. Over the next several centuries, these beliefs gave rise to the Doctrine of Discovery used by Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland – all Christian nations."

"The white man is very clever. He came quietly with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart."

"Lavigerie was a wonderfully practical man, and he was also a historian at the Sorbonne in France, where he had that vision of reconstructing the interior of Africa, as it had been done in Europe in the Middle Ages by a kind of kingdom, but with settlements of freed slaves, most of the population in East Africa was really helpless, Lavigerie therefore wanted the missionaries to build settlements and missions, for which he sent brothers, former Zouaves, and fathers, who then had to learn the language, and also had to learn how to build, and when those slaves were freed by the various expeditions that were sent out, they were sent to the missions. The idea behind this was very practical, and so was the idea that the Africans would become this new Christian people, like how Clovis was converted, and then gradually France, on that myth he built everything."

"As for reconstructing, and slowly rebuilding the country, that's where we are in right now, I don't think we can imagine what slavery did to the people here, It goes very deep, these things lasts for a very long time, even the rebelling against colonialism has also traces of this. Here it was quite late, 1830, but a bit further to the West, slavery lasted 3 to 4 centuries, 40 to 60 million people were moved from here, to America, that's no small thing, I would say that's an African holocaust."

"The trading explorer, the missionary, the concession hunter and the soldier follow each other with methodical certainty."

"“Rightly or wrongly the East has come to think of Christianity as part of the political game of the West. In religion, it talks of ‘going about doing good’: in politics this takes the form of ‘ruling others for their good’.” “Before the Christians went to Africa, the Africans had lands but no Bibles: now they have Bibles but no lands……… Hence the Fast concludes that the political method of the West is first to send missionaries, then traders and then gunboats to deprive the helpless peoples of their lands and to take possession of their natural resources.” “Is it any wonder if, with such knowledge of western penetration, the East becomes distrustful of the professed philanthropy o the Christians, turns hostile to a religion which has let itself be used by foreign powers for political expansion and grows more and more suspicious of the real mission of the missionary?”"

"Concerning Homosexuality: This once brought hell out of heaven on Sodom."

"Whether these matters are to be regarded as sport, or as earnest, we must not forget that this pleasure is held to have been granted by nature to male and female when conjoined for the work of procreation; the crime of male with male, or female with female, is an outrage on nature and a capital surrender to lust of pleasure."

"God loves homosexuals as much as anyone else. I think homosexuality is a sin, but no greater than idolatry and adultery. In my judgment, it's not that big."

"It was nearing midnight. We had been talking, praying, and reading the Scriptures for nearly two hours. I carefully shared the idea with Sam that maybe he had indeed been born that way, not as a "homosexual," but as a "eunuch." I explained what eunuchs were, and I assured Sam that they were made uniquely by God for a special purpose. ... Sam began to weep. I could see something different in his eyes. He read Matthew 19:12 over and over again, and then he began to shiver. He looked up at me and then turned to his mother and, through his tears, Sam said, "Mom, I'm not gay." His mom and grandmother began to weep. All of us were crying. He said, "I'm a eunuch. I guess God did make me special.""

"It is striking that every time homosexual practice is mentioned in the scriptures, it is condemned. There are only two ways one can neutralize the biblical witness against homosexual behavior: by gross misinterpretation or by moving away from a high view of Scripture."

"The present status of gay activism makes it imperative that thinking Christians really understand the situation on the national scene... Evangelical Christians need to be alert to the implications of this gay force in their communities, their churches, and their nation. But most of all, they need to understand the underlying biblical and theological assumptions which have always made the church of Jesus Christ, though not always in an intelligent and loving way, clearly and unequivocally condemn homosexuality. The response of the real Christian on the issue of homosexuality should not be an emotional trauma toward the repulsion and stigma attached to the movement and its adherents. It should be a rather clear exposition of what the Bible has to say on the subject, with redemptive goals which have clear ramifications in society and the church."

"Shouldn’t Christians treat all people with respect, regardless of their sexual orientation? Absolutely. The Bible says: “Honor men of all sorts” or, as Today’s English Version renders it, “Respect everyone.” (1 Peter 2:17) Therefore, Christians are not homophobic. They show kindness to all people, including those who are gay. (Matthew 7:12)."

"Bryant's performance displays ... many features of churchly condemnation of homosexuality. She quotes scriptures and rehearses what are supposed to be arguments. She lends her considerable stage presence to the repertoire of inherited topics. But more importantly she performs a rhetoric of compassion and cursing that claims the vulnerability of the young as justification for waging war on homosexuals. The Bryant campaign deploys the professedly, aggressively "Christian" rhetoric that still surrounds us, that still works in us and on us."

"It was when I was twelve years old that I encountered a homosexual for the first time. I had no idea what was going on. I was in a movie theater in Seattle and the fellow in the next seat put his hand on my knee. I waited a moment, assuming it was an accident and that he would remove it. Surprisingly, he didn't. Finally, I grabbed his hand with all my strength and literally threw it back at him. My adrenaline was pumping full steam. I bolted out of my seat, stalked back up the aisle several rows, and sat down. I stared at the back of that guy's head during much of the movie. Then, when I was older, I was in a car with a young man who put his arm around my shoulder. I think I was more frightened than anything else because he was in control of the car. It was a legitimate fear of the unknown that made me shout, "Stop this car! I'm getting out of here!""

"Many young people have left our churches and wandered off into the "gay" lifestyle. They abandon their faith or somehow justify their choices by claiming they were born that way. Why would a loving God create them in a way that is contrary to the Scriptures? They are left struggling through the rest of their life, often falling deeper and deeper into a godless lifestyle and further and further away from their faith. Unfortunately, the Christian world has taken two opposite extremes, both of which leave the "gay" individual without any honest answers. Some have decided that homosexuality is not a sin. They expect Christians that believe it is a sin to accept these individuals' lifestyle rather than help them escape from their behavior. The other extreme is to deem them hopelessly condemned and to release them into the world with no way back."

"[W]hile the Supreme Court may have created rights for LBGT couples to marry, that does not mean I am under any mandate to celebrate it. I will not be bullied into compromising on my beliefs about the whole issue of sexual sin or any other kind of sin for that matter. Sin not only break's God's laws, it breaks His heart. As a spiritual leader of my home, I need to communicate how sin not only grieves God, but it grieves me as well because it hurts all involved."