Unlearning God Quotes

“But if religion is more than the attainment of power and privilege, if it is the doorway into beauty and mystery and meaning, then not only is divinity unnecessary but it is an impediment, for it implies that enlightenment is beyond the reach of mortals.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“People did not come to God through Jesus as much as they saw the priorities of God in Jesus.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“it seems to me that the merit of any belief can be judged by the lengths people go to defend it. Poor, incomprehensible beliefs demand rigorous support. Defying reason and experience, they require the muscle of state and religion to maintain. Conversely, when a belief is so observably and obviously true, when it resonates with our experience, when it transcends cultures and eras, it requires no defense.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“Our efforts to unite God and country, to pretend as if their objectives and characters are one, is to create a tribal god, who cares only for its own and no one else. It is the god of limited love, who endorses massacres, holocausts, and injustice of every sort, so long as those tyrannies are directed against the other.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“The church’s failure to speak intelligently and realistically about human intimacy, sexual orientation, and gender formation has created a void in our cultural conversation, encouraging the least mature among us to fill that vacuum with a demeaning, degrading view of sex. When sex is too easily and quickly dismissed as sin, its practice will become distorted and destructive. Until it is acknowledged as a gift from God, it will remain the domain of Hollywood and the Kardashians, who, I assure you, don’t seem all that committed to our happiness and growth.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“It’s much simpler to wear the right clothes, eat the right food, and wear the right hairstyle than it is to love mercy and do justice. No wonder so many people have reduced religion to these simple, attainable standards.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“Why do so many people of faith emphasize obedience to rules and codes at the expense of mercy? And why do we tend to reduce the mystery, awe, and wonder of God to a checklist of obscure regulations that have little bearing on our spiritual growth? When one considers the vast complexity of the universe and the Spirit we believe set it in motion, why have we assumed that same Spirit cares so deeply about clothing, church authority, and gender roles? Why do we emphasize the mundane in a world of such magnificence?”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“the moment we dismiss someone else’s beliefs while championing our own is the moment our conversation ends and our growth stops.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“Avoid those persons who claim always to have believed the same thing and demand you do the same. What they are really saying is that they have refused to permit their encounters with God to reshape their lives.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“One thing my experience has showed me is that spiritually alive people tend to be insatiably curious about the Divine Presence, refuse to settle for cliché-heavy religion, and feel little obligation to believe something because they are told they must.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“What does it say about us when our intimacy is an embarrassment and our hostility is normalized?”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“I believe there is no One True Church, no One True Faith, no single path to God. There are only compassion and grace, and where they are found, God is present, yearning to know and be known.”
― Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe