quotations about Christianity
The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church, as an organization, has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.
H.L. MENCKEN
Treatise on the Gods
I consider Western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity.
MAHATMA GANDHI
The Message of Jesus Christ
For many centuries after the establishment of Christianity, mankind became more barbarous, ignorant, and miserable than before, instead of assisting the human mind in its progress to improvement, that system completely retarded it; a gloomy superstition, which sprung out of these gospels, cramped its energies, and fettered its exertions; instead of guiding society to freedom, peace, and happiness, there was founded on the authority of these writings a system of the most horrible and debasing oppression.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Christians! It is your duty not only to be good, but to shine; and, of all the lights which you kindle on the face, Joy will reach farthest out to sea, where troubled mariners are seeking the shore.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The way to begin a Christian life is not to study theology. Piety before theology. Right living will produce right thinking. Yet many men, when their consciences are aroused, run for catechisms, and commentaries, and systems. They do not mean to be shallow Christians. They intend to be thorough, if they enter upon the Christian life at all. Now, theologies are well in their place; but repentance and love must come before all other experiences. First a cure for your sin-sick soul, and then theologies. Suppose a man were taken with the cholera, and, instead of sending for a physician, he should send to a bookstore, and buy all the books which have been written on the human system, and, while the disease was working in his vitals, he should say, "I'll not put myself in the hands of any of these doctors. I shall probe this thing to the bottom." Would it not be better for him first to be cured of the cholera?
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The Christian religion seems to have fulfilled its great biological purpose, in so far as we are able to judge. It has led human thought to independence, and has lost its significance, therefore, to a yet undetermined extent.... It seems to me that we might still make use in some way of its form of thought, and especially of its great wisdom of life, which for two thousand years has proven to be particularly efficacious.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
Christianity is haunted by the theory of a God with a craving for bloody sacrifices.
J.B.S. HALDANE
Possible Worlds and Other Papers
The real difficulty with thousands in the present day is not that Christianity has been found wanting, but that it has never been seriously tried.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
What could make me love
my fellow Christian better
than to see that God loves us all
as we were all one soul?
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Meditations with Julian of Norwich
CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Many professed Christians are like railroad station houses, and the wicked are whirled indifferently by them, and go on their way forgetting them; whereas they should be like switches, taking sinners off one track, and putting them on to another.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
It took time for the church to come to terms with the ignominy of the cross. Church fathers forbade its depiction in art until the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine.... Now, though, the symbol is everywhere: artists beat gold into the shape of the Roman execution device, baseball players cross themselves before batting, and cancy confectioners even make chocolate crosses for the faithful to eat during Holy Week. Strange as it may seem, Christianity has become a religion of the cross--the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, in modern terms.
PHILIP YANCEY
The Jesus I Never Knew
Christians should be like a flower store: the odor of sanctity should betray them wherever they are.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
To be the instrument of converting a single soul, is so great a blessing and honor, that if there were no other way to accomplish it, any true Christian would be willing to lay down his life.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
The Revival and Its Lessons
Did Christians live according to their Religion, they would do nothing but what Truth, Righteousness, and Goodness do, according to their understanding and ability: and then one man would be a God unto another.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
You see, we're all born sinful except for Jesus who was perfect, of course. And he was sent to save us. But how could he save us unless we're sinning? So we have to go on sinning in order to be saved and go to Heaven. That's how Christianity works. That's why it suits so many people.
CHARLIE MCMANUS
Nuns on the Run
Christianity is simply the ideal form of manhood represented to us by Jesus Christ.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
With infinite depths of truth, and an incessant spring of spiritual life, Christianity cannot be limited to any time, or petrified in any shape. It is fluent and eternal. The reconciling element of the world, it goes forth into every age, and responds to the deepest tone of want in every posture of humanity.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.
KARL KRAUS
Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths
My experience is, that Christianity dispels more mystery than it involves. With Christianity, it is twilight in the world; without it, night. Christianity does not finish the statue--that is heaven's work; but it "rough-hews" all things--truth, the mind, the soul.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine