#secular

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#cheerful #dignity #effect #either #epochs

The concept of neutrality can lead to a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it. ↗

— Arthur Goldberg

#brooding #compelled #concept #constitution #devotion

It's no secret that in New York during the last 30 years there has been a tragic exodus from the churches into materialism, secularism and humanism. ↗

— Billy Graham

#churches #during #exodus #humanism #into

وإذ تتحول التجربة إلى «أصل» فإنها تُثْقِل على كل التاريخ اللاحق، وذلك من حيث تغدو موضوعاً للامتثال والتكرار، بدل أن تكون ساحة للتمثُّل والحوار. وإذن، فإن «الأطلقة» - وليس سواها - هي ما يُحيل تجارب البشر من «تاريخ حي» إلى «نصٍ أو أصلٍ جامد» يقف خارجه؛ على النحو الذى يكون معه أشبه بالشاهد المصمت المُعلق على قبر صاحبه، والذي لا يعرف الخَلَف اللاحق إلا التعبُّد في ظلاله. وتلك هي جوهر الممارسة السلفية؛ على أن يكون معلوماً أن هذه الممارسة لا تقف عند حدود من يُقال أنهم سلفيو هذا الزمان، بل تتجاوزهم إلى من يُقال أنهم حداثيوه أيضاً. و سواء مورست هذه «الأطلقة»، تحت يافطة الدين أو العلمانية، فإنها تمثل خطراً داهماً على الدولة ↗

— علي مبروك

#religion #secularism #religion

I've received a lot of positive feedback from both the secular and Christian markets. People seem to be receiving it with open arms and hearts, and are interested in the stories I want to share about my relationship with God and my faith. ↗

— Brian Littrell

#arms #both #christian #faith #feedback

Perhaps more than ever before, there is that aggressive secularism and there are those who would indeed try to destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square. Religion must not be taken from the public square. ↗

— Keith O'Brien

#before #christian #culture #destroy #ever

It was, however, in the interest of Osama bin Laden for us to destroy a secular Arab leader; it was very much in the interest of the Iranians because they wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion in 1980. ↗

— William Odom

#arab #because #bin #destroy #however

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. ↗

— Matthew Arnold

#modernity #secularization #faith

Christians walk as strangers in the world: They are untamed. They are free. To persevere with love, yet untamed by man, is often what leaves that open space for divine revelation when God so wills. ↗

— Criss Jami

#apologetics #christianity #christians #divine #divine-intervention

But in the 17th century Russian Orthodoxy was gravely weakened by an internal schism. In the 18th, the country was shaken by Peter's forcibly imposed transformations, which favored the economy, the state, and the military at the expense of the religious spirit and national life. And along with this lopsided Petrine enlightenment, Russia felt the first whiff of secularism; its subtle poisons permeated the educated classes in the course of the 19th century and opened the path to Marxism. By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#russia #secularism #education