christian living on Religiosity

Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played.

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...

In the book Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas, U2’s Bono does a great job describing God’s grace. After describing how the concept of karma is central to many religions, Bono explains how karm...

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.

American religion is conspicuous for its messianically pretentious energy, its embarassingly banal prose, and its impatiently hustling ambition.

About 2 out of 3 American adults who regularly attend church or other religious services say they go for their kids.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to makes us love one another.

Other major world religions are still centered in the same general geographic area from which they originated except for Christianity. Even more intriguing, the center of Christian growth continues to...

In virtually all studies of the sociology of religious behavior it is clearly apparent that a very high percentage of people declare they pray every day—and many say even many times a day.

A man's religion consists, not of the many things he is in doubt of and tries to believe, but of the few he is assured of and has no need of effort for believing.

Some of us are interested in religious studies because we are interested in people. People do religious things; they symbolize and ritualize their lives and desire to be in a community. What piqued my...

Religion says, "I obey; therefore I am accepted." Christianity says, "I’m accepted, therefore I obey."

There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier...

Religious faith is an embodied journey, not a protected cocoon of beliefs. It’s a pilgrimage.

As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons.

Faithfulness in small things is a big thing to God.

Most people nowadays would not say the religious stories believers believe are actually false. (It would be impolite to put it that way and might even be considered intolerant). At the same time, thou...

Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.

Even deliberately nonreligious people pray at times. Studies have shown that in secularized countries, prayer continues to be practiced not only by those who have no religious preference but even by m...

Seventy-one percent of Americans pray regularly. Even atheists backslide from time to time. I read somewhere (but I find it hard to believe) that a whopping 20 percent of agnostics and atheists sheepi...

I don't want a religion that I put away with my Sunday clothes, and don't take out till the day comes around again; I want something to see and feel and live day by day.

Yes, religion is a crutch. But it’s not my own personal crutch. It is Adam’s crutch. It’s the human race that walks (if it walks at all) with a limp. And so when Sunday morning comes around I drag old...

For some, faith begins with a hard shell, a rigid set of answers and platitudes that keep them safe but eventually prevent them from growing into who they could be. The system that was initially prote...

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromis...

My faith life, like that of every one else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be there. And so I’m not asked on a Sunday morni...

I find your lack of faith—disturbing.

Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.

The wrong question is whether your church is “traditional” or “contemporary” and which is better. The real issue is whether your church is biblically faithful, acting as the presence of Christ in the ...

[For Christians] the entire religion shop has been closed, boarded up, and forgotten. The church is not in the religion business. It never has been and it never will be, in spite of all the ecclesiast...