Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.
I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong; I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right
We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.
If the world grows to worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows to worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldlyness by the world.
Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not realize that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.
The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That is, it was founded on a faith that was not merely summed up after it had exited, but was defined before it existed.
In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel.
Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of the opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge.
Every heresy has been an effort to narrow the Church.
The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church
