Fred Smith > Fred's Quotes

“Defining theology as “the study of God” confuses this relationship. We are unable to study God directly as an object of inquiry. But we can study, reflect on, and dialogue about what God reveals to us.”
― Glenn R. Kreider, A Practical Primer on Theological Method: Table Manners for Discussing God, His Works, and His Ways

“A Christian doctrine of creation is not dependent on geographic precision; however, it is not wholly independent of geographic accuracy. Belief in creation has to refer to current real-world places or it refers to nothing.”
― Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race

“Each and every interpretation of the Atonement is most closely connected with some conception of the essential meaning of Christianity, and reflects some conception of the Divine nature. Indeed, it is in some conception of the nature of God that every doctrine of the Atonement has its ultimate ground. The history of the doctrine of the Atonement is so important a part of the history of Christian thought in general that the judgment which is formed on this part of the history, on its conflicts and its changes, must largely determine the judgment which is formed as to the meanings of Christian history in general. It is evident, therefore, that the thesis that we are maintaining raises some very wide issues.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement

“But God does not wish the aids, which he appoints for us, to be despised, and does not allow contempt of them to go unpunished. And we must keep in mind here, that not only is Scripture given to us, but interpreters and teachers are also added to help us.”
― John R.W. Stott, Understanding the Bible

“only theology supports an ultimate coherency that can embrace equally the true, the tentative, and the flawed, as reality itself embraces them—”
― Marilynne Robinson, What Are We Doing Here?

“As a last word and as my bequest, let me call to you in Huguenot style: ‘Résistez!’ Discipleship of the Crucified leads necessarily to resistance to idolatry on every front. This resistance is and must be the most important mark of Christian freedom.”
― Susan Grove Eastman, Oneself in Another: Participation and Personhood in Pauline Theology

“No one, it seems to me, who has fully grasped the Crucifixion can ever again take seriously any expression or instrument of worldly power, however venerable, glittering, or seemingly formidable. MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“by insisting that the created order carries its own truth, its own goodness, and its own beauty, modernity has made the created order into an idol.22”
― Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry