#conversion

The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted. ↗

— Oscar A. Romero

#church #conversion #courage #sin #society

When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens about every 10 years because I am a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric. I see in their eyes the trueness of the story. ↗

— Donald Miller

#spiritual-warfare #testimony #experience

In the secret recesses of man's nature the grace is given disposing and enabling him to yield. Though the will must at last act from its own resources and deliberate impulse, it is influenced through the feeling and the understanding in such a manner as to give it strength. It is utterly hopeless to penetrate this mystery: it is the secret between God's Spirit and man's agency. There is a Divine operation which works the desire and acts in such a manner as not to interfere with the natural freedom of the will. The man determines himself, through Divine grace, to salvation: never so free as when swayed by grace. ↗

— William Burton Pope

#conversion #free-will #god #prevenient-grace #freedom

Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. ↗

— Norman G. Finkelstein

#christopher-hitchens #conversion #politics #rationality #reason

If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. The Brothers Karamazov Mitya (Dmitri) to Aloysha who visits him in prison, Book XI - Ivan, Chapter 4 - A Hymn and a Secret. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#god #holiness #religion #the-brothers-karamazov #truth

We in the revivalist tradition have viewed grace only in terms of privatized, individualized spirituality. Give people enough Jesus to save their souls, move them to an emotional decision, help them get their hearts right and acquire a more responsible morality, and that will be enough. But that is not enough. It is not even the beginning of enough. God was concerned about those living in dire suffering long before Bono, Angelina Jolie, or George Clooney turned into social activists. ↗

— Ronnie McBrayer

#grace #social-justice #religion

There are many members of parliament present here who know as well as I do that, if a man has not already been converted, it will require a great deal more than a letter of appeal to achieve conversion. ↗

— Fredrik Bajer

#already #appeal #been #conversion #converted

I used to be a Catholic. I left because I object to conversion by concussion. If you don't agree with what they teach, you get clobbered over the head until you do. All that does is change the shape of the head. ↗

— Alan Alda

#because #catholic #change #conversion #does

I mean, I went to a church school when I was younger and imbibed a certain amount of religion then but it was really in university that I got interested in religion and politics at the same time. I don't think as if it were one moment of conversion but my spiritual journey really began then. ↗

— Tony Blair

#began #certain #church #conversion #got

I wish there were more true conversion, and then there would not be so much backsliding, and, for fear of suffering, living at ease, when there are so few to contend for Christ and His cause. ↗

— Donald Cargill

#cause #christ #contend #conversion #ease