Theologians From England

"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?"

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

"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."

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

"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."

"The Christianity of tomorrow will embrace all truth wherever it is found or however men have come to apprehend it, whether through specifically Christian teaching or through Buddhism or Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism or even through the bleak desert of apparent atheism."

"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.’"

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I am saying that truth may certainly be true whatever my opinion may be, but it has no authority with me until I perceive it to be true."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The abolition of the slave trade was supposed to be the certain death of slavery. Cut off the stream, and the pond will dry up, was the common notion at the time. Wilberforce and Clarkson, clear-sighted as they were, took this view; and the American statesmen, in providing for the abolition of the slave trade, thought they were providing for the abolition of the slavery. This view is quite consistent with the history of the times."

"Abt. a quarter before 10 oClock, the family assembled to prayers, which were read by Wilberforce in the dining room. As we passed from the drawing room I saw all the servants standing in regular order, the woemen ranged in a line against the wall & the men the same. There were 7 woemen & 6 men.—When the whole were collected in the dining room, all knelt down each against a chair or Sopha, and Wilberforce knelt at a table in the middle of the room, and after a little pause began to read a prayer, which He did very slowly in a low, solemnly awful voice. This was followed by 2 other prayers & the grace. It occupied abt. 10 minutes, and had the best effect as to the manner of it."

"He thought the House, the nation, and all Europe, under very great and serious obligations to the hon. gentleman for having brought the subject forward in a manner the most masterly, impressive, and eloquent. Principles so admirable, laid down with so much order and force, were equal to any thing he had ever heard of in modern oratory; and perhaps were not excelled by any thing to be met with in Demosthenes."

"God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners (morality)."

"[T]he pure and saintly character, and the noble career, of Mr. Wilberforce."

"Of these William Wilberforce was perhaps the most important, partly because his influence was chiefly exercised upon the upper class of society, whose support was clearly necessary if gospel-preaching and the profession of "seriousness" were to be freed from the taint of sedition and dissent; and partly because in his Practical View, published in 1797, he was able to stir the consciences of thousands who were confronted for the first time by a frank exposure of the shallowness and deceitfulness of professing a Christianity which was purely nominal and wholly untouched by the leaven of a living faith."

"One of the best ways to face this problem of self-centeredness is to discover some cause and some purpose, some loyalty outside of yourself and give yourself to that something... you are then able to live because you have given your life to something outside and something that is meaningful, objectified. You rise above this self-absorption to something outside. We look through history. We see that biography is a running commentary of this. We see Wilberforce. We see him somehow satisfying his desire by absorbing his life in the slave trade, those who are victims of the slave trade."

"The Hammonds...rarely mention Wilberforce save to sneer at his conservatism and his piety. Certainly a picture sketched from references in their pages would be viciously untrue to the real Wilberforce. But the Hammonds are not without clerical associates. Canon Raven, in his Christian Socialism, charges that Wilberforce "never realised that, while he was bringing liberty to negroes in the plantations, the white slaves of industry in mine and factory were being made the victims of a tyranny a thousandfold more cruel," and that Wilberforce "consistently opposed every single attempt to benefit the condition of the workers by legislation." Had Canon Raven read a few copies of Zachary Macaulay's Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter he would have rushed less thoughtlessly into his extravagant rhetoric that tyranny in factories was "a thousandfold more cruel" than tyranny on slave plantations. And had he read the Life of Wilberforce more carefully he would have found that Wilberforce did not "consistently oppose every single attempt" to benefit factory workers by legislation, but rather that he ardently supported the first attempt ever made to benefit them by legislation, and objected only...that the act did not go far enough."

"There was within him a vein of sheer gold – a warmth of feeling and lightness of heart which captivated an audience, confounded his critics, and made even the most vehement radical or the most austere orthodox clergyman admit, after meeting him, that he had been utterly disarmed by his encounter with a man who expressed so fully in his own life and character the true spirit of Christianity and living faith."

"The gospel freely admitted makes a man happy. It gives him peace with God, and makes him happy in God. It gives to industry a noble, contented look which selfish drudgery never wore; and from the moment that a man begins to do his work for his Saviour's sake, he feels that the most ordinary employments are full of sweetness and dignity, and that the most difficult are not impossible. And if any of you, my friends, is weary with his work, if dissatisfaction with yourself or sorrow of any kind disheartens you, if at any time you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing influence of vexing thoughts, look to Jesus, and be happy. Be happy, and your joyful work will prosper well."

"I hoped that it would please God to enable the friends of Christianity to be the instruments of wiping away what I have long thought, next to the slave trade, the foulest blot on the moral character of our countrymen, the suffering of our fellow-subjects — nay, they even stand towards us in the closer relation of our tenants — in the East Indies to remain, without any effort on our part to enlighten and reform them, under the grossest, the darkest, and most depraving system of idolatrous superstition that almost ever existed on earth."

"All men of enlightened understandings, who acknowledge the moral government of God, must also acknowledge, that vice must offend and virtue delight him. In short they must, more or less, assent to the Scripture declaration, “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”"

"Thank God that I should have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the abolition of slavery."

"Having heard all of this you may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know."

"God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners..."

"But let it be remembered, that this kind of inquisition would be still less endured in the West Indies than it would be here. For, it has been often observed, and it is undeniably true, “that wherever slavery is established, they who are free are peculiarly proud and jealous of their freedom.” Mr. Edwards has more than once declared this to be true with respect to the inhabitants of our West Indian Colonies, and this principle would assuredly cause them to regard with jealousy, and resent with indignation, any interference of the officers of government in the management of their private concerns and family affairs, among which their treatment of their own Slaves must fairly be included."

"Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition? Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression? Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption. It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines."

"In our own days, when it is but too clear that infidelity increases, it is not in consequence of the reasonings of the infidel writers having been much studied, but from the progress of luxury, and the decay of morals: and, so far as this increase may be traced at all to the works of sceptical writers; it has been produced, not by argument and discussion, but by sarcasms and points of wit, which have operated on weak minds, or on nominal Christians, by bringing gradually into contempt, opinions which, in their case, had only rested on the basis of blind respect and the prejudices of education. It may therefore be laid down as an axiom, that infidelity is in general a disease of the heart more than of the understanding. If Revelation were assailed only by reason and argument, it would have little to fear. The literary opposers of Christianity, from Herbert to Hume, have been seldom read. They made some stir in their day: during their span of existence they were noisy and noxious; but like the locusts of the east, which for a while obscure the air, and destroy the verdure, they were soon swept away and forgotten.' Their very names would be scarcely found, if Leland had not preserved them from oblivion."

"Let true Christians then, with becoming earnestness, strive in all things to recommend their profession, and to put to silence the vain scoffs of ignorant objectors. Let them boldly assert the cause of Christ in an age when so many, who bear the name of Christians, are ashamed of Him: and let them consider as devolved on Them the important duty of suspending for a while the fall of their country, and, perhaps, of performing a still more extensive service to society at large; not by busy interference in politics, in which it cannot but be confessed there is much uncertainty; but rather by that sure and radical benefit of restoring the influence of Religion, and of raising the standard of morality."

"I have said it many a time, and am surer of it than ever, that the life and death issue of Christianity is the inspiration and authority of the Bible."

"If the Bible is only human lore, and not divine truth, then we have no real answer to those who say, "Let's pick the best out of all religions and blend it all into Pan-Deism - one world religion with one god made out of many"."

"I care not what black spiritual crisis we may come through or what delightful spiritual Canaan we may enter, no blessing of the Christian life becomes continually possessed unless we are men and women of regular, daily, unhurried, secret lingerings in prayer."

"Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers."

"Yes, Wilberforce had been brave. But he had also been wise. The combination of such selfless devotion to a cause has seldom gone with such cool temper and judgement. This silver-tongued orator, the darling of the world of wit, of fashion, and of politics, the bosom friend of Pitt himself, had in early youth a primrose path spread before his feet. He chose instead a rugged track that led away from office, away from his friend, away from the "respectabilities" of the closing century, and led him among unfashionable and unpopular allies—Quakers, dissenters, infidels, and whigs—who upheld his cause when it had few friends among slumbrous churchmen and hard-faced Tories. Yet he himself was all the while a churchman and a Tory. It was a difficult path to tread, and he trod it with the sure foot of absolute sincerity and single-mindedness, and ended by being the leader of the whole nation without distinction of party and sect."

"Regeneration is the fountain; sanctification is the river (in deeper or shallower degree). Entire sanctification is the river in fullest flow."

"Fundamentally, our Lord's message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, "I am the bread". He did not come merely to shed light; He said, "I am the light". He did not come merely to show the door; He said, "I am the door". He did not come merely to name a shepherd; He said, "I am the shepherd". He did not come merely to point the way; He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life"."

"The very loss of our church establishment, though, as in all human institutions, some defects may be found in it, would in itself be attended with the most fatal consequences. No prudent man dares hastily pronounce how for its destruction might not greatly endanger our civil institutions."

"The funeral of that most excellent man Mr. Wilberforce, eminent through the course of his long life for his public and private virtues, for his sterling patriotism, his Christian piety, and his universal feeling of philanthropy, took place on Saturday... thus conferring the highest possible honour on the memory of Mr. Wilberforce, and giving to the world (for of Mr. Wilberforce it may be said, that he was not the property of a nook, but of the world) an exalted testimony of the esteem in which he was held by the rank, talent, and virtue of the country, and of the friendship which his mild manners and noble qualities had won him."

"William Wilberforce, whose private life was a shining example of consistent and earnest goodness, who had a real belief in freedom and spent years in the struggle for the abolition of slavery, and who never realised that, while he was bringing liberty to negroes in the plantations, the white slaves of industry in mine and factory were being made the victims of a tyranny a thousandfold more cruel. Persons who think reverently of the hero of the anti-slavery movement should remember such facts as those revealed by Richard Oastler in his letters on Slavery in Yorkshire; and should remember too that Wilberforce had consistently opposed every single attempt to benefit the condition of the workers by legislation and was reckoned by Cobbett to be the worst enemy of the people then living."

"Wilberforce's Practical View of the Religious System of professed Christians...contrasted with Real Christianity (1797) had an astonishing influence in transforming the whole character and tone of social life among "the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country," to whom it was explicitly addressed."

"[I]t can be truly said that, more than to any other single factor, the victory of the Abolitionists was due to the untiring energy, devotion and resourcesfulness of William Wilberforce."

"If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large."