Naum

“The first precondition of being called a spiritual leader is to perceive and feel the falsehood that is prevailing in society, and then to dedicate one’s life to a struggle against that falsehood. If one tolerates the falsehood and resigns oneself to it, one can never become a prophet. If one cannot rise above material life, one cannot even become a citizen in the Kingdom of the Spirit, far less a leader of others. —Vladimir Solovyov in his eulogy of Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1881”
― Brian Zahnd, Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

“Of course, sheep require a shepherd. Due to the domestication process, sheep can no longer survive on their own. They are optimized for what we want from them and unable to defend themselves or respond to challenges. We have made them that way over a long period of time. In a way, the sheep do flourish—they are born and live and die, they don’t have to worry about predators most of the time, and they are led to the greenest pastures. In a similar way, many Christians are insulated by Christian subculture, so that they only have to listen to Christian music and read Christian books and go to Christian events—and not even broadly Christian, but—in the U.S. at least—very specifically conservative Evangelical Christian. These Christians are also led to the green pastures—megachurches and bestselling “spiritual” books and charming pastors—and, in a very limited way, perhaps, they flourish in this domestication. Over generations, whole communities can forget that they were ever free and wild.”
― Aric Clark, Never Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get To Work

“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“But we cannot make whatever encompasses us an object without moving out of it. We do not see the eyes we see with. We cannot perceive the place where we are standing unless we leave it.”
― Jürgen Moltmann, Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation