QUOTES ATTRIBUTED TO OTHER METHODIST AND WESLEYAN LEADERS


  • "The 'unanimous consent!' We should laugh at it as a piece of grim irony were it not for the serious issues involved. There is no end to patristic contradictions: they agree in nothing but the existence of God, if in that. Milton admits that there are good things in the Fathers, enough to silence Anglican and Romish patrolaters; yet, says he, in his rather savage way, 'Whatsoever time, or the heedless hand of blind chance, hath drawn down from of old to this present in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea-weed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, those are the Fathers.'"
    Summers's Systematic Theology, Volume 1, page 517. By Rev. J. J. Tigert
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  • It matters but little whether this eminent state of holiness be gained by a bold, energetic, and determined exercise of faith and prayer, or by a more gradual process-whether it be instantaneous or gradual, or both the one and the other. The great matter is, with each and all of us, that we lose no time, but arise at once, and "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
    Elements of Divinity, page 470. By Thomas N. Ralston
  • "To sanctify you wholly is to complete the work of purification and renovation begun in your regeneration." By Joseph Benson
  • "Lord, we don't mind who is second as long as Thou art first." By W.E. Stangter
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  • The chief danger of the 20th century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, and heaven without hell.
    Gen. William Booth (1829-1912), Salvation Army founder
  • "We seem to be getting back to the Paradisaic state. The Bible says that Adam and Eve, in Paradise, were naked and not ashamed."

    Giant Against the Sky, page 82. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "The age of short sermons is the age of shallow piety."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 222. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • We seem to be getting back to the Paradisaic state. The Bible says that Adam and Eve, in Paradise, were naked and not ashamed.
    Giant Against the Sky, page 82. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "I am not concerned with what this age demands of Christ. I am concerned with what Christ demands of this age."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 227. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "bad beliefs make bad behavior... Without faith morality cannot long survive. A world without God must soon be a world without goodness. A creedless race will quickly become a corrupt race... Atheism in the mind breeds anarchy in the life as like begets like. Creed and conduct are inseparably untied. A faithless world must be a foul world. Waves of crime rise from seas of doubt."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 240. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "The church has something the world needs, but it needs nothing the world can give."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 227. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "The Church of God is in the world to bring men to submit to the authority of the King of Kings and Lord of lords; the message of the Church, therefore, must be spoken with authority and not uttered with the obsequiousness of one who begs for some petty food from those whom he approaches."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 227. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "The pulpits of the great cities in Christendom are filled largely by two classes of men, viz.: critics who believe too little to preach and men who fear the the critics too much to preach."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 175. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "We have got to answer for all time this supreme question, Shall Americans Christianize their Schools or shall the Schools paganize Americans? This is no mere dream; it is the awfullest reality we have ever confronted in this country."
    Giant Against the Sky, page 143. Bishop Warren Akin Candler
  • "Never take a text which you do not fully understand; and make it a point of conscience to give the literal meaning of it to the people: this is a matter of great and solemn importance. To give God's words a different meaning to what he intended to convey by them, or to put a construction upon them which we have not the fullest proof he has intended, is awful indeed!"
    Clarke's Theology, pp. 319-20).
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  • "It may seem a severe thing for a Methodist bishop, and one who has been president of one of our largest universities to say, but nevertheless I believe it to be true that the schools and universities of the Methodist Episcopal Church belong more to the devil to-day than they do to our Church."
    Bishop Charles H. Fowler, pre 1913
  • An interloper who steals property must be caught and fairly charged as an expression of justice. Secularization is such an interloper.
    Dr. Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 33
  • I am protesting a lockout of other voices that do not fit the politically correct grid. I plead only that the politically incorrect may also be admitted into the game. The inquisition going on today is not by traditionalists but by inquisitors who describe themselves as liberated.
    Dr. Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 35
  • My thesis is this: The liberated form of education for ministry that has attached itself to dying modernity is expiring. The church that weds itself to modernity is already a widow within postmodernity.
    Dr. Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 36
  • When academic freedom becomes a dodge by which the seminary sidesteps every hint of potential moral criticism, then academic freedom itself has been prostituted.
    Dr. Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 38
  • It seems worth noting that the liberated seminary at its zenith has finally achieved a condition that has never before prevailed in Christian history: Heresy simply does not exist.
    Dr. Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 46
  • The sign of hope is not that the battle has been won, but that it has finally been joined, and at last the story can be told.
    Dr. Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 50
  • If it is God who is speaking, the text must be viewed as the judge and constrainer of the interpreter.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 74
  • Christ does not seek friendship with the world on its own terms. The approach of the Christian to the world is based on the costly atoning love of God. There can be no serious Christian presence in the world that does not grasp the fact that the world is radically fallen under divine judgment.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 102
  • The mercy of God, according to the prophets, does not permit societal sin to last more than three or at most four generations.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 121
  • Biblically viewed, this cultural disintegration is a providential judgment of sin and a grace-laden opportunity for listening to God.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 124
  • Christ changes human history one by one, one person at a time.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 126
  • Special forms and temporal expressions of the church are constantly coming to nothing, but not the Body of Christ being enabled by the Holy Spirit.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 128
  • It is never too late to rediscover the joy of studying God.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 46
    • In order to get the complete impact of what Dr. Oden is saying, the following quote includes two paragraphs.

  • You have a right to speak out in class about your real convictions. Apostolicity itself is a critical principle that brings its own "hermeneutic of suspicion" to modern ideological critics.
  • The text has rights over against its interpreters, some of whom stand poised to exploit, assault, and mug the text. When contemporary readers make themselves the absolute masters of the text, then the author has lost all rights of authorship. Authorial intent becomes subservient to contemporary ideological interests. Historians are not the absolute judges and arbiters of the documents of testimony. If it is God who is speaking, the text must be viewed as the judge and constrainer of the interpreter.
    Thomas C. Oden, "Requiem - A Lament in Three Movements" page 73-74
  • "Consider this contrast. If the bruised heel of Christ led to his resurrection, ascension, and session, what will the crushed head of Satan lead to? While he is not dead, he is terminally ill and he will never recover."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 20.
  • "Just as Pentecost was the early rain which established the kingdom, the latter rain, which we are to pray for, will produce a great end time harvest of souls."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 40.
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  • "When scripture says "shortly" "speedily" or "at hand" God is describing an event that is about to happen - or else language has no meaning."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 81.
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  • "While antiquity is the true test of doctrine, time is the great expositor of prophecy."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 265.
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  • "Liberals cannot preach the ethics of Jesus while leaving aside his person and work. Conservatives cannot preach salvation through faith and ignore the demands of Christ for an ethic of righteousness."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 293.
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  • "Ye are called to fight under a captain whose confidence never falters, whose courage was never shaken, and whose triumph over the serried ranks of foes is more certain than to-morrow's sunrise."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 328, as quoted from Daniel Steele.
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  • "The Bible is the most abused book in the world. It receives its worst treatment from certain persons who call themselves its friends."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 335, as quoted from Eckman.
  • "Our forefathers sang their faith. The contemporary Church sings their feelings."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 339.
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  • "Recently Jiang Zhemin, president of China and head of the communist party said, 'Our enemy is not those with guns, but missionaries with Bibles'"
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 371, as quoted from News Briefs.
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  • "...liberalism left Methodism with no faith and fundamentalism left the holiness movement without hope"
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 378
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  • "According to 1990 statistics, if the world were a town of a thousand people, 300 would be Christians, 175 Muslims, 128 Hindus, 55 Buddhists, and 47 Animists."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 386
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  • "Even now it is estimated that 150,000 believers are martyred each year. However, if the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church and if there have been more martyrs in the twentieth century than all previous centuries combined, then we should expect the growth of the twenty-first century Church like never before."
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 287
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  • "The cross is our 'tree of life.'"
    Dr. Vic Reasoner, The Hope of the Gospel, page 387
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  • May we encourage you to go toTHE HOPE OF THE GOSPEL An Introduction to Wesleyan Eschatology, a book review by Pastor D. L. Hartman
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  • "God is to the human soul what light is to the world." Dr. Adam Clarke

  • Thomas Taylor quoted Capt Thomas Webb in a letter to Wesley asking for a preacher. "All their knowledge and religion was not worth a rush unless their sins were forgiven and they had the witness of God's Spirit with theirs that they were the children of God"

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