Quotations re Christian Religion

• “Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished.” (J.C. Ryle)
• “Know this: it’s the ones who read the Bible who cause the trouble for dead religion. Why? Religion works in the realm of ignorance and in the realm of the soul. It bases its facts on thoughts, legends, and what denominations dream up instead of what the actual Scriptures state.”  (Roberts Liardon, p135 God’s Generals II, Whittaker House, New Kensington, 2003)

• “No man can say Jesus is Lord save by the Holy Ghost, yet man is seeking to interpret (& say Jesus is Lord) in terms of reason, history , (education) & philosophy”  (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)
• “We have somehow got hold of the idea that error is only that which is outrageously wrong; and we do not seem to understand that the most dangerous person of all is the one who does not emphasise the right things” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Sermon on the Mount, 2:244)

“The Christian religion, begins in a new birth by the Spirit. It develops under His guidance, & is sustained by His Presence;”  But ignoring the Spirit, it becomes a matter of education & evolution” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)

“when intellectualism takes the place of spirituality, then study has become an idol”( Ken Eckerty, “Why I left the Organized Church  A personal testimony”)

• ““….the lust for talk about work increases as the power for work decreases. Conferences multiply when work fails….“ (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)
• “The Church is the Body of Christ begotten, unified & indwelt by the Spirit. But forgetting the Spirit, men wrangle over limbs, functions & orders” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)
• “It is possible to excel in mechanics but fail in dynamic. To run an organisation needs no God…..machinery without power” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)
• “This generation we know, and the generation of the faithful we know: here is a separation between the precious and the vile, between the holy and the profane; so all people weigh and consider in what generation you are.” Quote from  (HL Ingle, First among Friends, George Fox and the creation of Quakersim, 1996, Oxford University Press)

• “Consider the Catholic Church: This is an institution that excommunicates women who want to become priests, but it does not excommunicate male priests who rape children. The Church is more concerned about stopping contraception than stopping genocide. It is more worried about gay marriage than about nuclear proliferation. When we realize that morality relates to questions of human and animal well-being, we can see that the Catholic Church is as confused about morality as it is about cosmology. It is not offering an alternative moral framework; it is offering a false one”. Quote from Sam Harris at http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-moral-landscape-q-a-with-sam-harris/ Though may Christians are concerned similarly, Harris appears stridently anti-Christian -Editor.

“The carnal can argue but it is the Spirit that convicts. Education can civilise, but it is being born of the Spirit that saves.” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)

• “You can never please a religious spirit. I have said this thousands of times, and I’ll say it again. In all my travels throughout the world, I’ve encountered all kinds of evil, deceptive spirits. But I’ve never seen a meaner, more vicious spirit than the spirit of religion. It disguises itself so you think you are serving God. Its nature is wicked, spiteful, jealous, and malicious. It is a murdering spirit with a ‘nice’ camouflage. It demands horrific works that eventually send people into sin, error or the grave. It was one of these spirits behind the betrayal of Jesus. You’ll never appease it, nor will you ever please God through it.
• Today in our society, religious spirits don’t openly burn people at the stake or martyr them like the Roman Catholic Church once did. However, some acts of terrorism have a religious spirit connected to them. A common way a religious spirit tries to murder someone is by assassinating that person’s reputation with gossip. We need to recognize the strategies of the religious spirit ….. Our mind-set has been lulled by the religious spirit, making us want to run from the person being slandered instead of finding the truth and joining with them to bring about divine change on the earth…”  (Roberts Liardon, p129 God’s Generals II, Whittaker House, New Kensington, 2003) The religious spirit can be manifest in non-overtly religious way, as in political ideology, or in the workplace or the schoolroom. It can often appear to be anti-religious. But it acts the same way to slander & murder [Editor]

• “Every generation needs a reformation, because when we forget our history or our reason for living, then our reliance upon the Holy SPirit can grow dormant, and the heavens close and become brazen” (Roberts Liardon, p11 God’s Generals II, Whittaker House, New Kensington, 2003)  It can be easily argued that reformation in every generation requires that every generation needs to re-discover church as well. Revival is a corporate expression of mass individual regeneration. Historically, it tends to occur outside of, and despite institutionalised church.

• “Confusion & Impotence are inevitable when the wisdom & resources of the world are substituted for the presence & power of the Holy Spirit …..Christian Religion has been reconstructed without the Holy Spirit”……despite the intense interest in Jesus, the certainties about him that come through the Holy Spirit have been lost” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)

• “When religion turns to humanity for its inspiration and to the world for its power, God is dethroned & the sanctuary becomes a secularised fellowship.” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)
• “In the absence of the supernatural, earnest souls may turn to the best substitute they can find, & believe they are doing God’s service.”(Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)

• “The liberty of prophesying has gone because men believe in investigation & not in inspiration …Christian experience, though it may be said to begin in the Spirit, must be perfected in the wisdom of the flesh and the culture of the schools….…these things flourish on impoverished soil & dung hills. They are the works of the flesh & the product of spiritual death…. The answer is in the demonstration of supernatural religion, and the only way to supernatural religion is the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.” (Samuel Chadwick, The Way to Pentecost , mid 1800’s)

• “The problem with religious morality is that it often causes people to care about the wrong things, leading them to make choices that needlessly perpetuate human suffering.” (Sam Harris at his website  http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-moral-landscape-q-a-with-sam-harris/ )