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The 20th century gave rise to one of the greatest and most distressing paradoxes of human history: that the greatest intolerance and violence of that century were practiced by those who believed that religion caused intolerance and violence.

Alister E. McGrath

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Alister E. McGrath
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More quotes by Alister E. McGrath

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Manz, formerly one of Zwingli's closest allies, held that there was no biblical warrant for infant baptism. Refusing to recant his views, he was tied up and drowned in the River Limmat.
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We must not think that religious concerns swamped all other social activities. They simply provided a focal point for them.
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Faith is not something that goes against the evidence, it goes beyond it. The evidence is saying to us, 'There is another country. There is something beyond mere reason'.
Alister E. McGrath
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When the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring.
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If there is no ultimate reality, it's pointless to think about how we might get there.
Alister E. McGrath
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For Luther, it (faith) is an undeviating, trusting outlook appointment life, a constant stance of the trustworthiness of the promises of God.
Alister E. McGrath
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Puzzles lead to logical answers mysteries often force us to stretch language to its limits in an attempt to describe a reality that is just too great to take in properly.
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The true believer is not someone who disengages from this world in order to focus on heaven, but rather the one who tries to make this world more like heaven.
Alister E. McGrath
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The success of the Inklings also helps us to see criticism in a positive light. There are, unfortunately, people who boost their own sense of importance by criticizing others as a matter of principle. Yet within this community, criticism was a mark of respect and commitment.
Alister E. McGrath
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Within each of us exists the image of God, however disfigured and corrupted by sin it may presently be. God is able to recover this image through grace as we are conformed to Christ.
Alister E. McGrath
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Christianity israrely understood by those outside its bounds. In fact, this is probably one of the greatest tasks confronting the apologist–to rescue Christianity from misunderstandings.
Alister E. McGrath
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The state is concerned with the promotion of outward righteousness arising from the individual being constrained to keep the law. The Gospel alters human nature, whereas the state merely restrains human greed and evil, having no positive power to alter human motivation.
Alister E. McGrath
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At Oxford University, the certainties of my atheist faith (and atheism is a faith) began to crumble
Alister E. McGrath
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Hope is a settled state of mind, in which we see the world in its true light, and look forward to our final homecoming in heaven.
Alister E. McGrath
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We live in a world of competing narratives. In the end, we have to decide for ourselves which is right. And having made that decision, we then need to inhabit the story we trust.
Alister E. McGrath
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Atheism, I began to realize, rested on a less-than-satisfactory evidential basis. The arguments that had once seemed bold, decisive, and conclusive increasingly turned out to be circular, tentative, and uncertain.
Alister E. McGrath
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Surely the better way is to pursue a generous orthodoxy, seeing disagreements in the context of the greater agreements which bind us together.
Alister E. McGrath
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The Christian faith allows us to see further and deeper, to appreciate that nature is studded with signs, radiant with reminders, and emblazoned with symbols of God, our creator and redeemer.
Alister E. McGrath
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Deep down within all of us is a longing to work out what life is all about and what we're meant to be doing.
Alister E. McGrath
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The English experience suggested that nobody really doubted the existence of God until theologians tried to prove it.
Alister E. McGrath