The End of Religion Quotes

“Think of how our world would be different if people embraced this one teaching of Jesus: We are all family.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The Jesus of the Bible lives by a simple philosophy: If love guides our hearts, rules become redundant. Love, embraced as a guiding orientation of other-centeredness, will always lead us to do the right thing.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“I am one of the growing number of people whose lives have been touched by the irreligious spirituality of the rabbi from Nazareth. At the same time, I am deeply saddened and sometimes angered by the variety of ways his teaching and example have been codified, conceptualized, and institutionalized by a religion that bears his name but all too often misses his message.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Jesus’ goal for his followers is never just a life without obvious sin, but a life filled with genuine love.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“I do not believe all religions lead to God because no religion leads to God. Religion does not lead people to
God any more than cups quench your thirst.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Two thousand years ago God started a revolt against the religion He started. So don’t ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christian institutions that bear His name. If He was willing to turn Judaism upside down, don’t think for a moment our institutions are safe from a divine revolt. I am convinced that even now there are multitudes of followers of Jesus Christ who are sick and tired of the church playing games and playing down the call of God. My travels only confirm that the murmurings of revolution are everywhere. I am convinced that there is an uprising in the works and that no one less than God is behind it.   — ERWIN MCMANUS”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Western Christians often pour their energies into national politics as a way of clamoring for the power they once had in society. But history bears this out: Whenever the church gets into bed with political powers, the church becomes the state's whore.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Today, many people use the term "spirituality" the same way Jesus used the word "faith"-to describe the relationship one has with Ultimate Reality directly, above and beyond the systems and institutions of religion. Some religious people feel threatened by this kind of talk. Personally, I am encouraged, because I think we are finally catching up to what Jesus has been saying for over two thousand years.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“I have met many people who call themselves spiritual as a way of saying that they just don’t care to go to church or synagogue or mosque or temple anymore. But being spiritual is not about what you don’t do. Yes, walking in the woods can be a spiritual experience, but it can also just be a walk in the woods. Likewise, going to church can be a spiritual experience, or it can just be a religious tradition. The heart of the matter is the human heart.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“It would be nice to comfort ourselves with thoughts of how much the Christian religion has progressed from the violent times discussed in this chapter, but that would be a false comfort. It is my conviction that many conservative Christian groups refrain from killing, not because they have matured, but because the institutional church has lost the power it once had. Violent attitudes may be muted in today's world, but they find ways to reemerge in different forms. Listen to the sermons and sound bites of many popular Christian leaders today and you will notice the same aggressive, angry, and uncharitable attitudes lingering beneath the surface.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“We must remember that the enemy is not tradition itself, but the complete dependence upon tradition and routine to the point where we disengage from thoughtful, purposeful, intentional intimacy.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“important-becoming a religion dropout does not by itself make you more spiritual. Jesus taught that the secret was a change of heart, not a change of religious expression.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The Jesus described in the Bible never uses the word religion to refer to what he came to establish, nor does he invite people to join a particular institution or organization. When he speaks of the "church," he is talking about the people who gather in his name, not the structure they meet in or the organization they belong to (see Matthew 18:15-20). And when he talks about connecting with God, he consistently speaks not of
religion but of "faith" (Luke 7:50; John 3:14-16). Jesus never commands his followers to embrace detailed creeds or codes of conduct, and he never instructs his followers to participate in exhaustive religious rituals. His life's work was about undoing the knots that bound people to ritual and empty tradition.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Through his first miracle, Jesus intentionally desecrates a religious icon. He purposely
chooses these sacred jars to challenge the religious system by converting them from icons of personal purification into symbols of relational celebration. Jesus takes us from holy water to wedding wine. From legalism to life. From religion to relationship.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Act just once in such a manner that your action expresses that you fear God alone and man not at all-you will immediately in some measure cause a scandal.
-SOREN KIERKEGAARD”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“They are open to learning from all religions, but reluctant to commit to any. Often they reject religion for one simple reason: They have had firsthand experience with it. Many have been part of an organized religion in the past, and the experience seemed more burdensome and boring than freeing and enlivening. They resonate with Lenny Bruce, who said, "People are leaving the church and finding God.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Christian Fundamentalism. Because the holy texts of nearly all religions hold the seed of violence, fundamentalists of every stripe tend to become increasingly violent, in their attitudes if not in their actions. William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, insisted that if our concept of God is wrong, the more religious we get, the more dangerous we are to ourselves and others.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Jesus did things that won the favor of common people, while at the same time enraging the leaders of the religious establishment.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“I was young and beginning to study the Bible for myself and, in the process, came to believe that I held a volatile document in my hands-one that had the potential to destroy all religion from the inside out.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The Jesus described in the Bible is scandalous. He is not portrayed as the founder of a world religion, but the challenger of all religions. He is a subversive, anti-institutional revolutionary. Now, when I say "anti-institutional," I am not suggesting that Jesus opposes all forms of organization, but that he opposes dependence on any one organization for our connection with God.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Religion uses rules to force our steps, guilt to keep us in line, and rituals to remind us of our failure to live up to those rules. In doing this, religion adds more weight to those who are already burdened with life's hardships.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Christianity needs to hear the message of Jesus as much as or more than most religions.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“Our world is full of people on a quest for ultimate reality-truth seekers who are moving toward spirituality as quickly as they are moving away from religion.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The revelation of God is the abolition of religion.
- KARL BARTH”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The Christian faith is the phenomenon of people following Jesus. The Christian religion is the phenomenon of people following the phenomenon of people following Jesus.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“I knew I had to let go of my religious assumptions and let the Jesus of Scripture be who the Bible says he is, and not whom two thousand years of church history and tradition say he should be.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The Bible is far more than the religious holy book for two major world religions — Judaism and Christianity. It is a library of ancient documents that point toward a surprisingly nonreligious spirituality that ultimately culminates in the subversive message and mission of Jesus.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“The Crusades. In 1095 Pope Urban 11 called for the knights of Europe to unite and march to Jerusalem to save the Holy Land from the rule of the Islamic infidels. Just decades earlier, Pope Gregory VII had declared, "Cursed he the man who holds back his sword from shedding blood," and now his wishes were coming to pass. The Crusaders rode into battle with the cry Deus volt-"God wills it!" Raymond of Agiles accompanied the Crusaders as a representative of the church during the first Crusade. He documented the taking of Jerusalem with these words:
Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of Saracens (Muslims) were beheaded.... Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with flames. Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the temple of Solomon.... What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will
exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much at least, that in the temple and portico of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and the bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, when it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.5”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“we should examine whether the blame lies more with the Christian church for "watering down" Christ's message. Perhaps the problem is not with
Jesus' teaching, but with Christians' simply not doing what he said.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus

“my purpose in this book is to point out the radical nature of the message of Jesus that has been sitting right under our religious noses all this time.”
― Bruxy Cavey, The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus