#amen

Theologically, the demand for “circumcision” can take many forms, even today. It appears whenever one thinks along these lines: “Faith in Christ is fine as far as it goes, but your relation to God is not really right and your salvation not adequate unless…” It does not matter how the sentence is completed. Whenever such fine print is introduced to qualify trust/faith, there is “circumcision,” and Paul’s defense of the adequacy of trust/faith can come into its own again. The Galatian situation is never far; in fact, it is all too familiar. ↗

— Leander E. Keck

#jesus-christ #new-covenant #new-testament #paul #faith

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. ↗

— James Madison

#constitution #freedom #right-to-bear-arms #second-amendment #freedom

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. (12 May 1780) ↗

— John Adams

#first-amendment #politics #presidents #scholorship #architecture

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ↗

— United States Congress

#freedom

The collar came first, and when Guerin drew it from his neck he felt the collar's absence like a lightness, his spine unfurling, his shoulders settling. Like a lie, cracking and dropping from him. ↗

— S.U. Pacat

#damen #freedom #freedom

To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#creatures #food #life #sacrament #art

The rain thundered down so heavily that Pritam could imagine that space itself was made of water and was pouring through rents in the sky's tired fabric. ↗

— Stephen M. Irwin

#firmament #flooding #rain #storm #weather

Like the Hindu in Belfast who was asked whether he was a Catholic Hindu or a Protestant Hindu, those of us who follow this fresh reading of the New Testament want to say to our critics right and left, ‘Don’t imagine that because we don’t check all your fundamentalist boxes, we must be modernists, or that because we don’t check all your modernist boxes, we must be fundamentalists. ↗

— N.T. Wright

#modernists #new-testament #sbl #imagination

We all have the right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. We all don't have to agree with one another on our opinions. Everyone in my circle, that I run around with, we all feel the same about God, country, integrity and character. ↗

— Luke Scott

#agree #amendment #another #around #character

That's a spiritual lifestyle, being willing to admit that you don't know everything and that you were wrong about some things. It's about making a list of all the people you've harmed, either emotionally or physically or financially, and going back and making amends. That's a spiritual lifestyle. It's not a fluffy ethereal concept. ↗

— Anthony Kiedis

#spiritual-growth #spiritual-life #spirituality #life