Some Quotes

I found many quotes written by other authors and theologians cited by Dr. Hill in his first book, that I mentioned in a previous post, titled Washed and Waiting, that are meaningful to me for various reasons, so I pass them on to you here for your perusal.  Thank you Dr. Hill for bringing these quotes to my attention, some for the first time.

This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp.  Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God?
--David Ford, The Shape of Living

We also wish to affirm those sisters and brothers, already in membership with orthodox churches, who--while experiencing same-sex desires and feelings--nevertheless battle with the rest of us, in repentance and faith, for a lifestyle that affirms marriage [between a man and a woman] and celibacy as the two given norms for sexual expression. There is room for every kind of background and past sinful experience among members of Christ's flock as we learn the way of repentence and renewed lives, for Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1Corinthians 6:11)
   This is true inclusivity.
--Richard Bewes, "The New Hampshire Decision: Statement from All Souls Church, Langham Place, London Wi, November 2003." 


Biblcal commands are not arbitrary decrees but correspond to the way the world is and will be.
--Richard Bauckham, God and the Crisis of Freedom  

I can only answer the question "What am I to do?" if I can answer the prior question "Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?"
--Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue  

Through baptism, Christians have entered a corporate whole whose health is at stake in the conduct of all its members. Sin is like an infection in the body; thus moral action is not merely a matter of individual freedom and preference....The New Testament never considers sexual conduct a matter of purely private concern between consenting adults. According to Paul, everything that we do as Christians, including our sexual practisces, affects the whole body of Christ.
--New Testament theologian Richard Hays, Moral vision of the  New Testament, 391,92  

What if the church were full of people who were loving and safe, willing to walk alongside people who struggle? What if there were people in the church who kept confidences, who took the time to be Jesus to those who struggle with homosexuality? What if the church were what God intended it to be?
--Anonymous

Don't
Surrender
Your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more
Deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
--Hafiz

Be adored among men,
God, three-numbered form;
Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,
Man's malice, with wrecking and storm.
Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,
Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;
Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung;
Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Wreck of the Deutschland, stanza 9