One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don’t have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all of this, and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf. For reasons I will explore in the conclusion, pastors are, as a rule, reluctant to teach what they learned about the Bible in seminary. Bart D Ehrman, ‘Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible’
No wild beasts are as hostile to men as Christian sects in general are to one another. Emperor Julian
A very heathen in the carnal part,
Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart. Alexander Pope, Epistles to Several Persons, 1735
It is the struggle between those who want to argue for the rule of faith and apostolic tradition, and for those who want to argue for a diverse notion of what Christianity is in the plural. Richard Beaton, Fuller Theological Seminary
Without a doubt one of the reasons for the success of Christianity is that it is able to brings motifs and ideas from other religions, especially the mystery religions, into Christianity. Professor Marvin Meyer, Chapman University
A Christian is a man who feels
Repentance on a Sunday
For what he did on Saturday
And is going to do on Monday. Thomas Russell Ybarra, The Christian, 1909
A local thing called Christianity. Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts, 1904
Ever since the world was at peace all the different Christians in the world have been obedience to the Roman Church. It is agreed by all nations that it is forbidden to move things that have been immovable for a long time. Henry VIII, His Defence of the Faith
The whole effect of Christianity was to transfer drama onto the moral plane. Andre Gide, Les Faux Monnayeurs, 1925
The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. Author unknown, viz Urban Dictionary
The Masonic version of Christianity: hello, three Protestants came from the eastern star bearing gifts – gold, Frankincense and Nick Faldo golf clubs. Rab C Nesbitt: Semmitry, BBC 1997
Christians are not obsessed with blood sacrifice any more. Except they are. The God Who Wasn’t There, 2005
The greatest crime in fundamentalist Christianity is to think. ibid.
In the world of the Church female sexuality was viewed as polluting and as a source of sin. So the idea that you’re messiah would come born of a woman was actually a fairly unpleasant idea to celibate Church men. Professor Carole Fontaine, Andover Newton Theological School
There was another solution: autocracy hidden beneath the thin veneer of a restored Republic. But to convince Roman people to give up many of their political freedoms in exchange for peace was going to take every ounce of Octavian’s political genius. With the help of a change of name the Emperor Augustus, formally known as Octavian, would transform Rome from a republic into the greatest empire the world had ever known. It would dominate the Western World for another five hundred years, only to be challenged by a new religious cult: Christianity. Richard Miles, The Ancient World V: Republic of Virtue, BBC 2010
This weakness would be exposed and exploited by an obscure Jewish sect that began in the Roman province of Judea, and the execution of an unorthodox religious leader ... Christianity would go on to become the official religion of Rome and a major contributor to its downfall. The cult’s extraordinary growth began after the Jewish revolt of 66 A.D. and the destruction of the High Temple in Jerusalem by Titus, the son of the Roman emperor. Richard Miles, The Ancient World VI: City of Man, City of God
Constantine – always ready to give God the benefit of the doubt – showed his gratitude a year later by passing an edict of toleration granting Christians freedom of worship throughout the Empire. A decade later when Constantine emerged as sole Emperor the obscure messianic cult from Judea really came in from the cold. Constantine demonstrated his commitment to Christianity with hard cash. ibid.
It is often said that Christian faith is the dominant faith in America. It is also often said that faith is a bad thing, which prevents religious people from determining the answers to various vital questions. On the basis of the relevant evidence, faith in other words is regarded as not only blind, but blinding. The truth about America however is more complex. Another kind of faith, radically different from Christian faith, is actually the dominant faith in our country. David Ray Griffin, interview Guns & Butter 7th January 2009
Too often Christian faith is less important to Christians in America than their American faith. The evidence that 9/11 was an inside job I have argued is overwhelming to anyone with eyes to see. And Christian faith at its best serves to open people’s eyes to this evidence. When Christian faith is subordinated to faith in American goodness, however, it becomes a blinding faith. Producing Christians with eyes wide shut. In working so long to expose the truth about 9/11 one of my central hopes is that this exposure will lead American Christians to repent of this idolatrous subordination. And once Christians see 9/11 for what it was, in the pretext to extend the American Empire, in predominantly Muslim countries, I hope they will realise that to be loyal to Jesus, I preach an anti-Imperial gospel. They will need to oppose American imperialism as they have opposed previous types of imperialism. Our country needs, our world needs, our leadership in exposing the truth about 9/11. Let’s do it! ibid.
At heart Christianity is a personality cult. Its core is the unprecedented idea that god became human not in a pharaoh, a king or even an emperor but in a humble peasant from Galilee. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity I II III IV V VI, BBC 2009
In the early 4th century a betting man might have put his money on Christianity becoming a major religion here in the East. But then something completely unexpected happened in the West. A new Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity his own. ibid.
We call it the Nicene Creed, and it’s still recited in everyday worship throughout the Christian world. It states that God is equally the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are three in one. The Trinity. ibid.
Today Christianity is seen as a Western faith. Indeed many in the Muslim world see Western lifestyles as Christian lifestyles. But Christianity is not by origin a Western religion. Its beginnings are in the Middle East where there still exists Churches which have been Eastern since the earliest Christian era. The story of the first Christianity tells us that the Christianity faith is in fact hugely diverse. With many identities. But it shows us that far from being a clash of civilisations, in the East the clash between Islam and Christianity enriched both faiths. ibid.
The recent history of Christianity has been described as a sea of faith ebbing away before the relentless advance of science, reason and progress. ibid.
Newton challenged the idea of a God who intervenes in the world. Voltaire the idea of a just God. Revolutionaries questioned the authority of the Catholic Church. Strauss that of the Bible. Later, Charles Darwin found evidence in the fossil record to confirm those doubts. And yet Christianity didn’t crumple. ibid.
If the history of the church teaches us anything it’s that it has an exceptional knack for reinventing itself in the face of fresh dangers. The modern world has plenty to throw at the church: scepticism, freedom, choice. But modernity can’t escape the oldest questions at the heart of the messy business of being human: questions of rights and wrong, purpose and meaning. ibid.
Western society seems obsessed with sex ... It stems from the religion, which over centuries slowly took over the West. Christianity: for nearly two thousand years Christian thinkers have worried away at sex trying to law down the law on what's right and wrong. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Sex and the Church I: From Pleasure to Sin, BBC 2015
The West’s problem with sex goes back to the first centuries of Christianity, when early Christians turned sex from a biological necessity into a vice, from a pleasure into a sin. We’ve been struggling with the fallout ever since. ibid.
Ancient Greeks kept their women indoors. ibid.
The Syrians introduced the monastic life to the West. They were the great traders of the ancient world. ibid.
So for Augustine all sex is intrinsically evil and sinful ... All children are born into sin. ibid.
Sexuality became a battleground between Catholics and Protestants. Christianity’s grip on Western sexual morality would now be stronger than ever. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Sex and the Church II: Sexual Revolution
1073 Pope Gregory: he has his own vision of strict Christian morality. ibid.
The Church would declare marriages valid ... For the first time in the history of the West you had to be married by a priest ... Laws who they could and couldn’t marry. ibid.
The Pope [Gregory] now wanted all clergy to renounce sex. ibid.