Quotes about Power

Grace has its own power, even in international politics.

The church has allowed itself to get so swept up in political issues that it plays by the rules of adversarial power. In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square. Somehow the paramount command to love—even to love our enemies—gets lost.

Forgiveness has its own extraordinary power which reaches beyond law and beyond justice.

Justice has a good and righteous and rational kind of power. The power of grace is different: unworldly, transforming, supernatural.

Grace is Christianity's best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate.

The church works best as a force of resistance, a counterbalance to the consuming power of the state.

Not even God, with all his power, can force a human being to love.

A church that lives by power dies by power.

The message of this book has the power to reform the church, one relationship at a time.

see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis once said that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.

A similar cycle has recurred throughout church history. Christians present an attractive counterculture until they become the dominant culture. Then they divert from their mission, join the power structure, and in the process turn society against them. Rejected, they retreat into a minority subculture, only to start the cycle all over again.

The gospel of grace begins and ends with forgiveness. And people write songs with titles like "Amazing Grace" for one reason: grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations. Grace alone melts ungrace.