An unchurched christian is a grotesque anomaly. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person. For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history. On the contrary, the church is God's new community.
John StottRelated topics
accident anomaly christian church divine grotesque history nothing person purpose liesRelated quotes
Do not say, "this happened by chance, while this came to be of itself." In all that exists there is nothing disorderly, nothing indefinite, nothing without purpose, nothing by chance ... How many hairs are on your head? God will not forget one of them. Do you see how nothing, even the smallest thing, escapes the gaze of God?
Basil of Caesarea
The peasant will be told what the Church has destroyed for them: the whole of the secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the shapeless, the daemonic. The peasant will learn to hate the Church on that basis... We shall wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion particular to our race.
Hermann Rauschning
Against the teachings of eternal torture, of the vicarious influence theory of atonement, of the infallibility of the Bible, I leveled all the strength of my brain and tongue, and I exposed the history of the Christian Church with unsparing hand, its persecutions, its religious wars, its cruelties, its oppressions.
Annie Besant