#christian

Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and the impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services. ↗

— Rodney Stark

#cities #urbanization #family

To the degree that we embrace the truth that our identity is not rooted in our success, power, or popularity, but in God's infinite love, to that degree can we let go of our need to judge. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#love

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#christianity #death #earth #funeral #poem

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you declare that your life does not belong to you, but has been created for the purpose of Another. ↗

— Paul David Tripp

#christianity #forgiveness #forgiveness

That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#christianity #prologue #death

We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it...But unfortunetly we now need God's help in order to do something which God, in his own nature, never does at all - to surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die. ↗

— C. S. Lewis

#love

If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider 'not spiritual work' I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love. ↗

— Amy Carmichael

#hypocrisy #love

Let us not forget: we are a pilgrim church, subject to misunderstanding, to persecution, but a church that walks serene, because it bears the force of love. ↗

— Oscar A. Romero

#church #love #persecution #pilgrim #love

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. ↗

— Augustine of Hippo

#humor #math #humor

I woke up to singing and found myself singing too ↗

— Don Piper

#death