John

“The fundamental truth of God’s nature (love) seems irreconcilably incompatible with day-to-day life in this world (affliction).”
― Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel

“The Cross is God’s eternal love, refracted through human sin. What God’s love looks like now, refracted through human sin, is a crucified Jewish man.”
― Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel

“in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with representations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which have very little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is a contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come in contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all these misfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one's own person a little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who is working near a furnace, and who has neither a singed hair, nor blackened nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first proof of charity in the priest, in the bishop especially, is poverty.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“that still would hardly reduce all other religions to mere falsehood. More to the point, no one really acquainted with the metaphysical and spiritual claims of the major theistic faiths can fail to notice that on a host of fundamental philosophical issues, and especially on the issue of how divine transcendence should be understood, the areas of accord are quite vast.”
― David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss