Christianity is not some ideal toward which we ought always to strive even though the ideal is out of reach. Christianity is not a series of slogans that sum up our beliefs.
Stanley HauerwasRead
Conservatives and liberals understand the Christian faith as a set of ideas because, so understood, Christianity seems to be a set of beliefs assessable to anyone upon reflection.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that Christianity can be viewed as a collection of ideas that anyone can evaluate through thought and reflection.
Stanley Hauerwas highlights the differing perceptions of the Christian faith between conservatives and liberals, emphasizing that when understood merely as a belief system, it becomes accessible for anyone to analyze. This perspective encourages a reflective engagement with Christianity, inviting individuals to consider its ideas critically rather than merely accepting them on faith or tradition.
Themes
ChristianityBeliefsReflectionConservativesLiberals
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on faith, this quote could open up a dialogue about the nature of belief.
More from Stanley Hauerwas
All quotes βMy way of putting it is that Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.
Stanley HauerwasRead
Advent is patience it's how God has made us a people of promise, in a world of impatience.
Stanley HauerwasRead
War is America's central liturgical act necessary to renew our sense that we are a nation unlike other nations.
Stanley HauerwasRead
To kill, in war or in any circumstance, creates a silence. It is right that silence should surround the taking of life. After all, the life taken is not ours to take.
Stanley HauerwasRead
The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.
Stanley HauerwasRead
Similar quotes
Sometimes the story we're telling the world isn't half as endearing as the one that lives inside us.
Donald MillerRead
Meditation upon death does not teach one how to die; it does not make the departure more easy, but ease is not what I seek. Beloved boy, so willful and brooding, your sacrifice will have enriched not my life but my death. ... Centuries as yet unborn within the dark womb of time would pass by thousands over that tomb without restoring life to him, but likewise without adding to his death, and without changing the fact that he had been.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?
PlatoRead
Freedom always deals with 'the possible'; this gives freedom its great flexibility, its fascination, and its dangers.
Rollo MayRead
The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto).
James H. ConeRead
Memories are what you no longer want to remember.
Joan DidionRead