20th-century Theologian Quotes

Ultimately our claim to know the one God only gains credence in the contemporary world as he demonstrates the divine presence through the way we live- through our lives as we connect our Christian belief with true Christian living.

The linguistic and literary reality of the biblical tradition is folkloristic in essence. The concept of a benei Israel... is a reflection of no sociopolitical entity of the historical state of Israel of the Assyrian period

Real life does not come naturally. It is counterintuitive. It is a skill we have to learn. That's because the way to real life is not something we get, but something we give.

J. P. Moreland
J. P. Moreland
Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and the genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being. This relationship is not external or extrinsic to our identity but wells up as the defining truth from our deepest being.

Elizabeth Johnson (theologian)
Elizabeth Johnson (theologian)
What is the pattern of worship that best conveys the richness of divine grace, faithfully interprets the gospel in our modern world and helpfully consolidates the body of Christ?

The only way for us to make sense of life today is to appreciate where the future is going. Scripture outlines that future, not with detailed dates, but with a general outline of what is to come. That outline is designed not to have us prepare charts, but to prepare our hearts.

Art reminds us that in fact the world always exceeds our grasp and perception.

The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers—the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

Men who fear God face life fearlessly. Men who do not fear God end up fearing everything.

Consider the willful scorching of the earth, over-fishing, wasteful hunting, excessive and dangerous recycling of resources, and other similar "injustices" against the ways of nature share in the responsibility for this ecological spiraling down.

Bartholomew I of Constantinople
Bartholomew I of Constantinople
We see that it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.

Kallistos Ware
Kallistos Ware
In the doctrine of Providence, we have a specific Christian confession exclusively possible through faith in Jesus Christ. This faith is no general, vague notion of Providence. It has a concrete focus: 'If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?' (Rom.8:31, 32).

The church is not built on the rock foundation of geniuses and influencers but of apostles and prophets.

Russell D. Moore
Russell D. Moore
Jesus' words are inseparable from his person. He himself is the message he proclaims.

If the Church is in Christ, its initial act is always the act of thanksgiving, of returning the world to God.

But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us.

Science can be and is being made into an escapist philosophy — into a dodge of moral disciplines and spiritual responsibilities.

Christendom has often achieved apparent success by ignoring the precepts of its founder.

Never adopt a strategy that you would not want your opponents to use against you

Walter Wink
Walter Wink
The primary metaphor for the Easter season is the church as the resurrected people living a resurrected spirituality. Because of Easter we are in union with Christ and are called to live in our baptismal identity in his resurrection. This essential theme of Easter cannot be communicated in a day. It takes a season.

The Spirit has his own existence and personal function in the inner life of God and the economy of salvation: his task is to bring about the unity of the human race in the Body of Christ, but he also imparts to this unity a personal, and hence diversified, character.

It's easy to hope when there are evidences all around of how good God is. But to have the audacity to hope when that love is not evident... that is a true test.... To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope—make music and praise God on and with whatever it is you've got left, even though you can't see what God is going to do.

Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Wright
You were created as a masterpiece and you are one of God's expressions of beauty. Short, tall, thin, thick, freckles, big eyes, small ones... it doesn't matter.

In the present age doubt has become immune to faith and faith has dissociated itself from doubt.

I can give a precise day when Christ came to me and began to transform my life with his power and love.