Quotes about Church

is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in so doing utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea.

What he had to say was really rather elementary: basic Christianity such as was professed in the Bible and in the doctrines of the Church of England, and to which almost everyone claimed to subscribe, was practically nonexistent in British society.

Nowadays we often ask ourselves whether we still need the Church, whether we still need God. But this question, he said, is wrong. We are the ones who are questioned. The Church exists and God exists, and we are asked whether we are willing to be of service, for God needs us.

Bonhoeffer's three conclusions—that the church must question the state, help the state's victims, and work against the state, if necessary—were too much for almost everyone. But for him they were inescapable. In time, he would do all three.

Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Anyone who perseveres in his sin receives judgement. The church cannot loose the penitent from sin without arresting and binding the impenitent in sin.

The Americans speak so much about freedom in their sermons. Freedom as a possession is a doubtful thing for a church; freedom must be won under the compulsion of a necessity. Freedom for the church comes from the necessity of the Word of God. Otherwise it becomes arbitrariness and ends in a great many new ties.

A state which which includes within itself a terrorized Church has lost its most faithful servant.

Man is a being born to believe. And if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of truth to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own imagination.

Even in my own church I heard the words, 'Francis Chan' more than I heard the words, 'Holy Spirit.'

The church can challenge society, but society also challenges the church. That's good. We should be humble enough to be able to accept that.

The most important criterion is this: hire someone whose character and humility and attitude you would like to have reproduced in your church and in yourself.