This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If the church doesn’t listen to the world, then the world will never listen to the church.
In biblical days prophets were astir while the world was asleep; today the world is astir while church and synagogue are busy with trivialities.
Richard Halverson, fully Richard Christian Halverson
In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next it moved to Europe, where it became a culture, and, finally, it moved to America, where it became an enterprise.
Beginning | Church | Culture | Men | Philosophy |
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
Sick or well, blind or seeing, bond or free, we are here for a purpose and however we are situated, we please God better with useful deeds than with many prayers or pious resignation. The temple or church is empty unless the good life fill it. The altar is holy if only it represents the altar of our heart upon which we offer the only sacrifices ever commanded – the love that is stronger than hate and the faith that overcometh doubt.
Better | Church | Deeds | Doubt | Faith | God | Good | Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Pious | Purpose | Purpose | Resignation | Deeds | God |
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
Christian civilization has proved hollow to a terrifying degree: it is all veneer, but the inner man has remained untouched, and therefore unchanged. His soul is out of key with his external beliefs; in his soul the Christian has not kept pace with external developments. Yes, everything is to e found outside – in image and in word, in Church and Bible – but never inside. Inside reign the archaic gods, supreme as of old.
T. B. Maston, fully Thomas Buford Maston
Segregation in the church violates something that is basic in the nature of the church. How can a church exclude from “the church of God” those who are children of God? How can it, as “the body of Christ,” withhold the privilege of worship from those who have been brought into union with Christ.
Body | Children | Church | God | Nature | Worship | Privilege |
The degradation of our society today stems mainly from the lack of awareness of what is within us. Being ignorant of our true nature, we seek external solutions to the problems rooted within. In our search for security and prosperity we have abandoned ourselves and are constantly drifting away from human values and virtues.
Awareness | Nature | Problems | Prosperity | Search | Security | Society | Society | Awareness |
Toleration… is not true liberty when it is only a gracious concession by the state to the individual. Gracious concessions are incompatible with liberty of religion which is not something that a state, or an absolutist church offers, but that which the citizen claims and the law protects.
Church | Individual | Law | Liberty | Religion | Toleration |
In the hour of adversity be not without hope for crystal rain falls from black clouds.
People are coming to church not simply to partake of the sacred but to partake of sacred community.
In time of prosperity friends will be plenty. In times of adversity not one among twenty.
Important rules to watch in living. Keep life simple. Avoid watching for the knock in your motor. Learn to like work. Have a good hobby. Learn to be satisfied. Like people, say cheerful pleasant things. Turn the defeat of adversity into victory. Met your problems with decision. Make the present moment a success. Always be planning something. Say “nuts” to irritations.
Adversity | Decision | Defeat | Good | Important | Life | Life | People | Present | Problems | Success | Work | Learn |
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
Prosperity does not exalt the wise man, nor does adversity cast him down.
Adversity | Man | Prosperity | Wise |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make “safe” and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated by man.
Crime | Danger | Justify | Life | Life | Man | Prosperity | Safe | Danger |