Letter to the American Church Quotes

“So if someone attacks us for being political, we must cheerfully ignore their criticism. To allow the voices of this world to silence us in this way is precisely how the German Church was silenced.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“wire artist singles out a man in the front of the crowd, who seemed most confident in answering affirmatively. “You, sir!” the high-wire artist says to the man. “You say you believe that I can wheel the barrow across the cataract. Is that true? Do you really believe it?” “I do!” the man says. “Even with a heavy load inside the barrow?” “Why not? Certainly!” “Very well,” the high-wire artist says, “I’m glad to hear it. So please help me to show everyone else that I can do it by getting into the barrow!” Suddenly whether the man really and truly believes this can be done has become terribly personal. If he does, he should have no difficulty getting into the barrow. But if he doesn’t really and truly believe, he will never get into it.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“So we must ask ourselves: Does how I live show God that I actually believe what I claim to believe? Or does how I live show God that actually I do not believe what I claim to believe?”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“We should say that whenever a church is subservient to the state or to the reigning worldly culture—as the official church in communist China is today—it is no longer the Church of Jesus Christ. It is a counterfeit church that does not serve Jesus, but that serves the forces of power, which is to say it serves the devil.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“In the Old Testament God sent prophets to call the people of God actually to be the people of God, not only in name, but in how they lived. And in the last two thousand years God has sent prophetic figures to do the same thing: to call the people of God—what we now know as the Church—actually to be the Church.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“Is there still time for us to repent, or is it already too late? Before we continue, a word to those who do not believe we have time to repent, who believe that God must judge us because of what we already have done—and not done. Such beliefs are not biblical, and those who hold them are themselves enjoined to repent. To sulk like Jonah at what seems to be God’s forbearance with those we deem irredeemably wicked is only to become the enemies of God ourselves. Those who petulantly have decided that nothing we do now can avert judgment are themselves participating in bringing about that judgment by doing nothing. Their unwillingness to fight now will likely be the very thing that makes the crucial difference. It is ironic and tragic that they sit on the sidelines alongside those they blame for the situation.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“Bonhoeffer contended in his address that if a leader’s main objective was to idolize himself, that leader was not exhibiting true, godly leadership, but was in fact a “mis-leader” of the people he pretended to lead.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“these considerations must no doubt have a quite decisive influence on our personal and pastoral attitude towards the person concerned, but they cannot in any way alter the fact of murder.3”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church

“We pretend we would have spoken out for the Jews in Bonhoeffer’s day, or that we would have spoken against the slave trade in Wilberforce’s day, but are we speaking out today on the issues that are no less important to God in our time? If not, we are deceiving ourselves.”
― Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church