If everyone got a divorce and looked for a second wife, the Coptic family would lose its moral compass.
Pope Shenouda IiiRead
The Coptic Church respects the law but it does not accept rulings that go against the Bible and our freedom of religion.
Interpretation
The Coptic Church values legal systems but prioritizes biblical teachings and religious freedom.
In this quote, Pope Shenouda III emphasizes the importance of adhering to both legal frameworks and the religious principles outlined in the Bible within the context of the Coptic Church. He articulates a stance that while the church acknowledges the role of law, it fundamentally rejects any legal decisions that conflict with its beliefs or undermine its religious freedoms.
In practice
In a speech about religious tolerance, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of adhering to personal beliefs.
If everyone got a divorce and looked for a second wife, the Coptic family would lose its moral compass.
Oh, Brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and I know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus.
Oh my friends, we are loaded with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost is almost entirely neglected.
The cross is the foundation of the Bible: If you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume, you have hitherto read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a heaven without a sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without a spring or weights, a lamp without oil. It will not comfort you; it will not deliver your soul from hell.
[...]there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard.
The greatest miracle of the Bible is that the prophets of Israel could keep a religion as clean as a hounds tooth amid all the corruption and idolatry of the nations surrounding them.
My chief desire in all my writings, is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and make Him beautiful and glorious in the eyes of people; and to promote the increase of repentance, faith, and holiness upon earth.
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