Rings of Fire Quotes

“Wallace shared with the graduates, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“To be cut off by the sword of injured friendship is the most dreadful of all deaths, next to suicide.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“The church doesn’t lose its kids when they go to college. We start losing them in middle school. We lose children in the church when we send them out of worship to children’s church or Sunday school. This is one reason why Jesus kept insisting, “Let the little children come to me.”[222”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“The hunger and hunt for identity is a driving force of the modern world. But the nature of the self in an age of simulacra, pseudonyms, avatars, gender/racial fluidity, “the wisdom of crowds,” and online friends makes having an identity a massive maze of conquest and confusion. Western Christianity is in permanent identity crisis. For the first time in a millennium of history for much of the West (and soon in the US), Christianity is no longer the default identity for the majority of its population. The percentage of US citizens who claim to be Christian is plummeting (from 85 percent to 75 percent in the last twenty-five years). For the first time in a thousand years, Christianity is now in the minority in England and Wales. What is more significant, Christianity is not the default identity even for many who poll as “Christian.” Their go-to identity is found in other arenas, like class, gender, race, sexuality, politics, and ideology, with ethnicity and sexuality now eclipsing class and religion in forming identity movements, and social divisions (“Eurasianism,” “white power,” etc.) all responding to their sense of impending threat. No wonder the church no longer knows what it means to “pastor” anymore, and pastors themselves are in a state of professional disquiet.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“The hunger and hunt for identity is a driving force of the modern world. But the nature of the self in an age of simulacra, pseudonyms, avatars, gender/racial fluidity, “the wisdom of crowds,” and online friends makes having an identity a massive maze of conquest and confusion.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“We have backed away from any vision of common ground; we have, instead, divided American life into a set of experiences—Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish; male and female, heterosexual and homosexual; Indian, Anglo American, African American, Mexican American, Asian American. For what were very good reasons, did we over-accent cultural differences?[214”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“In spite of all the unity-in-diversity rhetoric, this is a culture that increasingly prefers to live in tribal enclosures and economic cocoons. Victimology is a virus that has infected everything and everyone, including the church. Victimhood is never a victory. Every healed “victim” who goes on to heal others and not just therapize themselves can attest to one thing: No one gets better by being excused from carrying responsibility for the consequences of their choices and actions.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“The notion seems to be that the more diverse we become, the more silencing we need for diverse views, even and especially ones with which we disagree. Hence the expansion of hate-speech laws, first in Europe and then in the US, which will increasingly entangle the church because already in Europe any Roman Catholic opposition to abortion is prima facie “hate speech.” But more diversity of culture, religion, and ethnicity ought to lead to more expressions of cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity in all aspects of life. In other words, more diversity of opinion, not less diversity of speech.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“Christ does not say to me, “Be yourself.” He says, “Be with me.” BROTHER ROGER OF TAIZÉ”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future

“The US once held all its diverse components together on a declaration of “self-evident” truths about a government of/by/for the people. Today truth is not self-evident but self-constructed, fabricated from the moist finger in the winds of opinion research and social media.”
― Leonard Sweet, Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith through a Volcanic Future