Samir Selmanovic quotes

So herein lies the choice for those of us who are Christians. We can either stay within the Christianity we have mastered with the Jesus we have domesticated, or we can leave Christianity as a destination, embrace Christianity as a way of life, and then journey to reality, where God is present and living in every person, every human community, and all creation.
-- Samir Selmanovic

#Christian #Jesus #Lying

The emerging church movement has come to believe that the ultimate context of the spiritual aspirations of a follower of Jesus Christ is not Christianity but rather the kingdom of God. ... to believe that God is limited to it would be an attempt to manage God. If one holds that Christ is confined to Christianity, one has chosen a god that is not sovereign. Soren Kierkegaard argued that the moment one decides to become a Christian, one is liable to idolatry.
-- Samir Selmanovic

#Christian #Spiritual #Jesus

When I pray the Lord's Prayer, I begin with the first word, "Our. . ." (see Matthew 6:9) and I stop and ask myself, "Who do I include in this Our?" I remind myself that the story of God is bigger than my personal story, bigger than the story of my religion, bigger than the story of all humanity, and bigger than the story of all creation. In the kingdom of God, these four stories are all really my stories - all at the same time - woven together, giving meaning and life to each other.
-- Samir Selmanovic

#Prayer #Giving #Humanity

Jesus offered a single incentive to follow himto summarize his selling point: 'Follow me, and you might be happy-or you might not. Follow me, and you might be empowered-or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends-or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers-or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off-or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well.'
-- Samir Selmanovic

#Jesus #Giving Up #Use

Evangelicals have to face it (like Roman Catholics of 16th century had to): Increasingly, our version of Good News is neither news nor good.
-- Samir Selmanovic

#Catholic #News #Faces

Prayer is the mighty engine that is to move the missionary work.

Perils as well as privileges attend the higher Christian life. The nearer we come to God, the thicker the hosts of darkness in heavenly places. Aggressive Christianity is the world's greatest need.

All play aspires to the condition of paradise...through play in all its forms...we hope to achieve a state that our larger Greco-Roman, Judeo- Christian culture has always known was lost. Where it exists, we do not know, although we always have envisioned it as a garden...always as removed, as an enclosed green place...Paradise is an ancient dream...It is a dream of ourselves as better than we are, back to what we were.

I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.

In Jesus Christ on the Cross, there is refuge; there is safety; there is shelter; and all the power of sin upon our track cannot reach us when we have taken shelter under the Cross that atones for our sins.

Oh! for this baptism of fire! when every spoken word for Jesus shall be a thunderbolt, and every prayer shall bring forth a mighty flood.

I walk up a dune to a beach and look out to sea, but it's 100km away. The ships lie askew in their dry beds, at anchor for ever. Today is my son's birthday. Thousands of miles from here, his healthy lungs are blowing out candles. I should be there but I'm here with another boy, who puts his face close to mine and laughs. I smile back but realise he can't see it, because I'm wearing an antiseptic muzzles to protect me from his breath.

All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.

I have known men to hazard their fortunes, go long journeys halfway about the world, forget friendships, even lie, cheat, and steal, all for the gain of a book.