Kirby Page Quotes

222 Sourced Quotes

War is not high ideals. War is not noble objectives. War is not gallant heroism. War is not sacrificial devotion.

Kirby Page
The truth must be driven home that it is sinful to prepare to annihilate millions of God's children in other lands.

Kirby Page
Taxation must be used as an instrument of social policy, but if carried too far under the profit system, it may be an instrument of destruction rather than construction.

Kirby Page
It is significant that the Great Teacher does not draw up a code of laws or list or sins. Nowhere does Jesus say explicitly that human slavery is a sin, or that the employment of little children for fourteen hours a day in a factory is a sin. He deals in general principles concerning the great fundamentals of life. So clear is his teaching, however, that there can be no doubt as to what he thinks of human slavery or the oppression of little children. In the teaching of Jesus, life is relationship, dwelling on friendly and affectionate terms with God, with ourselves, and with our fellowmen. Anything which destroys this relationship is sin. By this standard any thought or act may safely be judged.

Kirby Page
When we are reminded that modern men find it difficult to believe in the divinity of Jesus, we urge a search for realities that are far greater than words. If Jesus gives us our clearest vision of the nature of God; if he reveals the godlike qualities in man; if he secures penitence, restitution, joyous allegiance, and heroic sacrifice; if he leads to deliverance for individuals and groups—he becomes a symbol for all that is noblest in the universe, whatever may be the title by which he is characterized.

Kirby Page
The collectivism of fascism subordinates the individual to the totalitarian state and subjects him to ruthless dictatorship.

Kirby Page
The incident in the temple when Jesus used the scourge of small cords (John 2:13-17) is often cited as indicating Jesus sanction of war. The very most that can be said in this regard is that Jesus' sanctions the use of force. To say this is not proof that Jesus sanctions war War.... If Jesus had used force in such a way as to give supremacy to military necessity, to destroy human life, to break down reverence for personality, to retaliate with evil for evil, to compel the surrender of his moral freedom, we might then well believe that he sanctions war. The use of force is one problem, the morality of war as a means to an end involves so many additional factors as to be quite a different problem. Each should be judged on its own merits.

Kirby Page
To the degree that a man possesses a vivid ideal of the good life, submerges himself in the sea of human misery and endeavors to alleviate suffering, kindles imagination in hours of silence and by visions of beauty, and follows the noblest personality into the presence of a loving, suffering Father—to the extent that he lives meaningfully, he will be convinced of sin and cry aloud for deliverance.

Kirby Page
The police function as neutral third parties for the purpose of restraining criminals and bringing them before a judicial body for trial and judgement. In war, force is used by the belligerents themselves, no effort being made to bring evildoers before a judicial body, each army acting as judge, jury and executioner.

Kirby Page
By his own experience of God and his estimate of man, by his emphasis upon and practice of brotherhood, by his repudiation of hatred and violence, while attacking with audacity deeply entrenched inequities, and by his vicarious suffering on the cross, Jesus awakens, challenges and inspires us to take up the cross and follow in his sacrificially redemptive steps. Thus we are saved and thus society must be redeemed.

Kirby Page
A Christian is never justified in following a course of action that is utterly opposed to the principles of the Kingdom, not even to serve the temporal well being of family or nation.

Kirby Page
We gain illumination as to the immensity of Jesus' contribution in setting before us a vision of the new society, and indicating ways and means of bringing it to pass.

Kirby Page
It is possible to deal with criminal rulers or officials by strengthening the liberal forces within that country.

Kirby Page
As long as ministers and laymen labor under the delusion that contemporary Christianity is the same religion that Jesus practiced they will remain immunized against his way of life and will lack the vision.

Kirby Page
Should a patriot, in an endeavor to defend his country and to preserve high values, be willing to perpetrate atrocities upon women and children of other lands, accept the doctrine that the end justifies the means, follow the practice of military necessity, inflame passions through distortion and falsehood, bow down before a god of war, and forsake the way of Jesus?

Kirby Page
Our difficulty comes, of course, in deciding where ethical coercion ends and unethical violence begins. The only person who is able to escape from this dilemma is the complete anarchist who repudiates every form of restraint and compassion—and such a man has no solution to offer for the imminently menacing problems of the hour. All other persons are obliged to draw the line somewhere, and orderly progress depends upon intellectual keenness and ethical sensitiveness with which the situation is confronted.

Kirby Page
The supreme need of the world today is for a true conception and a deeper knowledge of God. The Hindu mother tosses her baby to the crocodiles, the devout pilgrim mutilates his body, the pious monk retires to the wilderness, the martial Moslem massacres the unbelieving, the consecrated missionary lays down his life for his enemy—all of these deeds are founded on varying conceptions of God.

Kirby Page
Shall we resort to violence, on the ground that the end justifies the mean? The answer of Jesus seems conclusive. There is no place in the home for violence—as distinguished from less extreme forms of coercion—and the killing of beloved kinsmen.

Kirby Page
Of all the founders of great religions, Jesus alone proclaimed one God, immanent and powerful, holy and righteous, a loving and seeking Father, concerned about the welfare of each of his children.

Kirby Page
Before a just society can be established the property system and the penal code of such a social order must be radically transformed.

Kirby Page
Supporters of the American plan of outlawry and advocates of the League are alike agreed... that new international law should be enacted and that a constantly recurring series of international conferences will be required if codification is to be kept up to date.

Kirby Page
Asceticism may offer a way of escape from the temptations that come from association with one's fellows and bring a sense of release and contentment. But the universal family can never be built by hermits. Contact may lead to contamination, but it is essential to redemption. Love never flees from the object of its affection. Where pain is most severe and sorrow most bitter, there love is most solicitous and untiring.

Kirby Page
The earliest authority was the word of the strongest warrior, the head of the family or the tribe, the medicine man or the witch doctor.

Kirby Page
The police take action against the criminal himself; not against his family and friends. War does not deal merely with the guilty men but destroys multitudes of innocent people; indeed, it does far more damage to the innocent than to the guilty.

Kirby Page
Jesus was a radical on race questions. He treated men of every color and tongue as sons of a common Father and therefore brothers beloved. In His sight all men are of inherent and inestimable value.... Jesus also disregarded the rigid class lines of his day.

Kirby Page
When we are reminded of his apocalyptic concepts and are told that an interim ethic possesses little validity for distant centuries, we are able to make rejoinder that his experience of God, his valuation of man, his call to love, forgiveness, and sacrifice are universal and eternal.

Kirby Page
The actual participants in industry under individualism are prompted to action by the following combination of incentives: desire for an income, desire for a higher income, desire for security, satisfaction received from shouldering responsibility or from wielding power, the joy of participation in creative activity, and the desire for applause and prestige.... And all these motivations may be conserved and strengthened under socialism.

Kirby Page
The United States not only helped to encircle Germany with a strangle-hold but continued to maintain that starvation blockade for more than seven months after the Armistice, on the ground that if the blockade were lifted Germany might refuse to accept the peace treaty. No sane American desired to prolong the process of starving German women and children; this atrocity was continued because it was considered necessary. No idea is more inextricably interwoven into war than the doctrine of military necessity.

Kirby Page
No man has yet appreciated all that is involved in Jesus' teaching regarding God.

Kirby Page
Every person is a child of God and a brother of man. Therefore personality is the supreme value, and should be regarded as an end and not merely as a means to an end.

Kirby Page