Quotes about Christianity

There is no higher "law" to be obeyed than the law of love. That, at the end of the day, is what it means to follow Jesus.

And for Christians, the gospel has always been the lens through which Israel's stories are read—which means, for Christians, Jesus, not the Bible, has the final word. The story of God's people has moved on, and so must we.

For Christians, then, the question is not "Who gets the Bible right?" The question is and has always been, "Who gets Jesus right?" The Gospel writers and Paul couldn't have made that any clearer.

The Bible is not a Christian owner's manual but a story—a diverse story of God and how his people have connected with him over the centuries, in changing circumstances and situations.

the passionate defense of the Bible as a "history book" among the more conservative wings of Christianity, despite intentions, isn't really an act of submission to God; it is making God submit to us. In its most extreme forms, making God look like us is what the Bible calls idolatry.

I mean, if we try to explain Jesus's handling of his Bible in terms of how many Christians today feel the Bible "ought" to be read, Jesus will look like one of my college Bible students, playing free association with the Bible. Or worse, we may try to find some way of taking Jesus out of his ancient Jewish world and making him look more like a suburban Protestant, an urban hipster, a tea party spokesman, and so on.

Reimagining the God of the Bible is what Christians do. More than that, they have to, if they wish to speak of the biblical God at all.

Paul doesn't call followers of Jesus "Christians." He calls them "in Christ." That isn't the easiest thing to understand, let alone explain, but it suggests an intimacy with Jesus that defies words. That intimacy also includes—somehow—suffering.

a common burden so many Christians have unwittingly carried, namely, that watching over us is God, an unstable parent, who is right off the bat harsh, vindictive, at best begrudgingly merciful, and mainly interested in whether we've read and understood the fine print; if not, God has no recourse but to punish us.

My commitment to follow through on my choice came with a cost. I tried very hard, for years, with complete transparency, to blend together old and new—the particular Christian tradition that birthed me and for which I had deep respect, and the bigger Bible I had come to know, was excited about, and could not deny without deceiving myself and others.

Sticking to the Bible at every turn, like it's an owner's manual or book of instruction, as the way to know God misses what Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers show us again and again: the words on the page of the Bible don't drive the story, Jesus does. Jesus is bigger than the Bible. For

So much can be learned from other traditions. In the long history of the Christian church, so many different, even conflicting, points of view have been embraced as true and valuable.