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Clergy had a vested interest in retaining the old, ways, which made few demands of them as teachers, as spiritual guides, or as moral examples or agents.

Alister E. McGrath

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Alister E. McGrath
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More quotes by 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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Our desires cannot be, and were never meant to be, satisfied by earthly pleasures alone.
Alister E. McGrath
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If worldviews or metanarratives can be compared to lenses, which of them brings things into the sharpest focus? This is not an irrational retreat from reason. Rather, it is about grasping a deeper order of things which is more easily accessed by the imagination than by reason.
Alister E. McGrath
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Our present world contains clues...to another world-a world which we can begin to experience now, but will only know in all its fullness at the end of things.
Alister E. McGrath
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We must not think that religious concerns swamped all other social activities. They simply provided a focal point for them.
Alister E. McGrath
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The most radical question which anyone can be asked is not how much their possessions cost, but whether they have found something of value - that is, something that makes living worthwhile.
Alister E. McGrath
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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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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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Hope is rooted in the trustworthiness of God.
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.
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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If there is no ultimate reality, it's pointless to think about how we might get there.
Alister E. McGrath
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The reading of literature opens our eyes, offering us new perspectives on things that we can evaluate and adopt.
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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The idea of ‘calling' was fundamentally redefined: no longer was it about being called to serve God by leaving the world it was now about serving God in the world
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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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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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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At Oxford University, the certainties of my atheist faith (and atheism is a faith) began to crumble
Alister E. McGrath
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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