quotations about church
Damn the Church. Damn it for imposing impossible celibacy on its people. Damn it for hypocrisy--Christendom was littered with priests wallowing in varieties of sin. How many of them were condemned? And damn it for its hatred of women--an abuse of half the world's inhabitants, so that those who refused to be penned into its sheepfold were condemned as harlots and heretics and witches.
ARIANA FRANKLIN
The Serpent's Tale
The church always arrives on the scene a little breathless and a little late.
BERNARD LONERGAN
attributed, Quotes for the Journey
Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
It wasn't that she had anything against the faith of the New Testament; left alone, it would be a tender and compassionate religion.... No, what Adelia objected to was the Church's interpretation of God as a petty, stupid, moneygrubbing, retrograde, antediluvian tyrant who, having created a stupendously varied world, had forbidden any inquiry into its complexity, leaving His people flailing in ignorance.
ARIANA FRANKLIN
Mistress of the Art of Death
Gimme dat, church mother in they church hat, clap
Man that Shug Avery Color Purple coming back, clap uhh
When that whole week beat you up and stress ya
But you hear that organ playing it remind ya of ya blessings
And on another note, she just hit another note
Chills down my spine, got me crying, make me over Lord
You don't know about us though, old school church hymms
Deacons get to humming now the drummer finna burst in
(Lordy, Lordy, Lord!) Can you hear me now
Church clothes sweaty, you don't care you just get it now
Testify, how we made martyrs outta these fathers
And rose up all of his daughters to glorify Him with honor
Man I swear I saw Miss Jones with her hair did
Now its flying everywhere she don't care what her head did
She an heir, yea
Caught up in the air, yea
Probably why she clapping like Jesus just hear her prayer, yeah
KB
"Church Clap"
Every one went to church -- every one with the exception of two or three families whom I looked upon with a kind of mysterious awe, as I might have looked upon a family without visible means of support and popularly suspected of earning a livelihood by counterfeiting or some similar lawless practice. The church itself was an old-fashioned brick Puritan meeting-house, equally free from architectural ornament without and from decoration within. The pews had been painted white; for some reason the paint had not dried, and the congregation, to protect their garments, had spread down upon the seats and backs of the pews newspapers, generally religious. When the paint at length dried the newspapers were pulled off, leaving the impression of their type reversed, and I used to interest myself during the long sermon in trying to decipher the hieroglyphic impressions. There was neither Sunday-School room nor prayer-meeting room. The Sunday-School was held in the church, and the parson at prayer-meeting took a seat in a pew about the center of the building, put a board across the back of the pews to hold his Bible and his lamp, and sat, except when speaking, with his back to the congregation. A great wood stove at the rear, with a smoke-pipe extending the whole length of the room to the flue in front, furnished the heat -- none too much of it on cold winter days. Plain and even homely as was this meeting-house, associations have given to it a sacredness in my eyes which neither Gothic arch nor pictured window could have given to it. My grandfather was largely instrumental in constructing it. In its pulpit each of his five sons preached on occasions. One of them acted as its pastor for a year or more. A grandson and a great-grandson of his were here baptized. My earliest recollections of public worship and of Sunday-School teaching are associated with it. We four brothers have each at times played the organ in connection with its service of sacred song. My brother Edward and myself were both ordained to the Gospel ministry within its walls, and in its pulpit preached some of our first sermons. The church still exists, a flourishing organization, but the meeting-house was destroyed by fire in 1886, and its place has been taken by a more modern structure.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church, that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
See the Gospel Church secure,
And founded on a Rock!
All her promises are sure;
Her bulwarks who can shock?
Count her every precious shrine;
Tell, to after-ages tell,
Fortified by power divine,
The Church can never fail.
CHARLES WESLEY
Scriptural
Church was never meant to be a place for gods to gather, but for devils wanting to shed their horns for halos.
RICHELLE E. GOODRICH
Being Bold
Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
HOZIER
"Take Me to Church"
Over the road there was a church: a modern gray building, which constantly played a recording of church bells. Strange it was. Why no proper bells? I never went in but I bet it was a robot church for androids, where the Bible was in binary and their Jesus had laser eyes and metal claws.
RUSSELL BRAND
My Booky Wook
The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.
CHARLES H. SPURGEON
attributed, Deciduous Belief
It belongs to the church to suffer blows, not to strike them.
BEZA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Every day, people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
LENNY BRUCE
The Essential Lenny Bruce
Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?
CHARLES DE LINT
The Little Country
The Church is a conspiracy to corrupt men's morals.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
A glorious Church is like a magnificent feast; there is all the variety that may be, but every one chooses out a dish or two that he likes, and lets the rest alone: how glorious soever the Church is, every one chooses out of it his own religion, by which he governs himself, and lets the rest alone.
JOHN SELDEN
Table Talk, 1686
That a mouse of scandal whisks its foolish tail across the church's floor is not sufficient cause for clamorous leaping out of its windows.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The church is important only as it ministers to purity of heart and life; and every church which so ministers is a good one; no matter how, when, or where it grew up; no matter whether it worship on its knees, or on its feet, or whether its ministers are ordained by pope, bishop, presbyter, or people; these are secondary things, and of no comparative moment. The church which opens on heaven is that, and that only, in which the spirit of heaven dwells. The church where worship rises to God's ear is that, and that only, where the soul ascends. No matter whether it be gathered in cathedral or barn; whether it sit in silence or send up a hymn; whether the minister speak from carefully prepared notes, or from immediate, fervent, irrepressible suggestion. If God be loved, and Jesus Christ be welcomed to the soul, and his instructions be meekly and wisely heard, and the solemn purpose grow up to do all duty amidst all conflict, sacrifice, and temptation, then the true end of the church is answered.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
The church alone beyond all question
Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Faust