Home > Work > Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianity
1 " If we have the potential to oppress or slay millions, it’s because we also have the potential to liberate and love millions. "
― Gregory A. Boyd , Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianity
2 " We tend to become the decisions we make. The more we choose something, the more we become that something. We are all in the process of solidifying our identities by the decisions we make. With each decision we make, we pick up momentum in the direction of that decision. "
3 " Love must be chosen. It must be free, and it must be from the heart, without external motivations. But, quite frankly, it’s very difficult for an all-powerful God to behave in such a way that love can occur with these qualities. "
4 " Liberal churches don’t regard it as “God’s Word” in any definitive way. They feel free to reject aspects of it if they don’t agree with it. Fundamentalists, at the opposite extreme, are so afraid of anything “liberal” that they tend to read the Bible “ahistorically.” They try to make the Bible into a twentieth-century legal document. Then there are the Catholics who see the Bible as but one of several sources of authority—the pope and church tradition being the other two. The Orthodox Church has the same perspective, but it doesn’t accept the pope. And then there are the evangelicals, who, like the fundamentalists, view the Bible as God’s Word, but they nevertheless hold that it should be read in its historical context. It is not a twentieth-century legal document. "
5 " So it is, I believe, in every area of our lives. The more we choose something, the harder it is to choose otherwise, until we finally are solidified—eternalized—in our decision. The momentum of our character becomes unstoppable. "
6 " Love must always start free—but its goal is to become unfree. To be unable not to love is the highest form of freedom in love. "
7 " The fact that it was the “Christian church” which chose to do the evils you write about, and to do them using God’s name, in my mind only serves to show that all that goes under the name of “Christian” is not necessarily Christian. Christianity isn’t a religion or an institution of any sort: It’s a relationship. Within the religion of Christianity there are, and have always been, genuine Christians—people who have a saving and transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. And this fact accounts for the tremendous good Christianity has brought to the world (in spite of the evils). But the “religion” of Christianity, the “institution” of the church, is not itself Christian. Only people, not institutions, can be Christian. "
8 " The dependability of the world which makes it possible for rational, morally responsible creatures to live works against us in certain circumstances. "
9 " The very fact that what God creates is less than Himself introduces limitations and imperfections into the picture. "
10 " Any created thing must, for example, possess a limited set of characteristics which rules out the possibility of it possessing other characteristics incompatible with these. "
