Quotes about Humanity

If we do not recognize that we ourselves are the problem, we will continue to make God the scapegoat—which is exactly what we did by the killing of the God-Man on the cross. The crucifixion of Jesus—whom we see as the Son of God—was a devastating prophecy that humans would sooner kill God than change themselves. Yet the God-Man suffers our rejection willingly so something bigger can happen.

For all who have tried to know Jesus without Christ, many of the core church teachings offered a disembodied Christ without any truly human Jesus, which was the norm for centuries in doctrine and in art. Art is the giveaway of what people really believe at any one time.

Human sympathy is the best and easiest way to open the heart space and to make us live inside our own bodies. God never intended most human beings to become philosophers or theologians, but God does want all humans to represent the very Sympathy and Empathy of God. And it's okay if it takes a while to get there. Our central message again bears repeating: God loves things by becoming them. We love God by continuing the same pattern.

I wondered if God might have an easier time using animals to communicate who God is, since they do not seem as willful and devious as we are.

My personal belief is that Jesus's own human mind knew his full divine identity only after his resurrection. He had to live his life with the same faith that we must live, and also "grow in wisdom, age, and grace" (Luke 2:40), just as we do.

Christ is God, and Jesus is the Christ's historical manifestation in time. Jesus is a Third Someone, not just God and not just man, but God and human together.

Once I know that all suffering is both our suffering and God's suffering, I can better endure and trust the desolations and disappointments that come my way. I can live with fewer comforts and conveniences when I see my part in global warming. I can speak with a soft and trusting voice in the public domain if doing so will help lessen human hatred and mistrust. I can stop circling the wagons around my own group, if doing so will help us recognize our common humanity.

Without the mediation of Christ, we will be tempted to overplay the distance and the distinction between God and humanity.

instead of saying that God came into the world through Jesus, maybe it would be better to say that Jesus came out of an already Christ-soaked world. The second Incarnation flowed out of the first, out of God's loving union with physical creation.

God never intended most human beings to become philosophers or theologians, but God does want all humans to represent the very Sympathy and Empathy of God.

Just the existence of a single mentally challenged or mentally ill person should make us change any of our theories about the necessity of some kind of correct thinking as the definition of "salvation." Yet we have a history of excluding and torturing people who do not "think" right.

Mary is all of us both receiving and handing on the gift. We liked her precisely because she was one of us—and not God!