There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church.
There is too much theology in the Church now, and too little of the Gospel.
I have a much wider, freer view about spirituality. I feel that people need to pursue it on their own, personally. You know, let it be theirs - a personal relationship with their soul, or their God, or with their church.
While the older generation is content to sit around and critique culture, that culture is moving beyond them. At some point the traditional church and all of the expressions of that church will become essentially irrelevant.
What I think we can do is help individuals understand the church teaching, but also maybe help the church understand the viewpoint of lay men and women about what they want in regard to priests, or how do they want the hierarchy to deal with them?
I used to always go to church on holidays, but I don't go much any more.
But I don't necessarily define my faith by going to church every Sunday.
Our next-door neighbour taught physics at Hampton University. Our church abounded with mathematicians. Supersonics experts held leadership positions in my mother's sorority, and electrical engineers sat on the board of my parents' college alumni associations.
Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.
Meanwhile the Church more and more provided for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, by practically chaining His influence to the hierarchy and the sacraments.
I support non-discrimination for homosexuals, but I think, or at least I have the right to think - without saying whether I think it or not - I have the right to think, along with the catechism of the Catholic Church, that homosexuality is morally wrong.
As for the British churchman, he goes to church as he goes to the bathroom, with the minimum of fuss and no explanation if he can help it.
If you had told me 28 years ago that the largest organization in the world touching the lives of gays and lesbians would be a church, I would not have believed you.
I need to find a church on Sunday. I need to say 'please' and 'thank you,' 'yes sir' and 'no ma'am.' Do the little things because that's part of being an adult.
I was never interested in singing in the church choir or in school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.
In the periods of my life when I've had least contact with the Church, I've always assumed a belief in God is a solid thing, but clearly it's a relationship; it has good days and bad days.
My grandmother is a huge part of my life. She's just a great woman: a woman of the church.
The Church must actualize, be present in the public debate, in our struggle for a true concept of liberty and peace.
I grew up in the Methodist church. My wife grew up in the Baptist church. And wives get everything they want. So we got married in the Baptist church.
Unless you have made a complete surrender and are doing his will it will avail you nothing if you've reformed a thousand times and have your name on fifty church records.
Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow.
Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.
Seeing people catch a feeling in their spirit and sprint the aisles of the church while my cousins played driving, uplifting gospel stuck with me. I let that same feeling wash over me when I experience and perform music.
Just very practically, pastors need to be careful that while they have a right to call people to absolute allegiance to the Word of God, we don't have the right to call people to absolute allegiance to our programs or every ministry we have at the church.
My father started me singing in church.
I was brought up Methodist, christened as a little baby and went to church every Sunday.
The state and the church seldom approve of anything I do. I don't need their approval. I don't aspire to the heterosexual nuclear family model.
Back in his Chicago Senate days, when he was seeking greater black credibility, Obama was happy enough to attend the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ.
Was the real Jesus of history one and the same as the Christ of faith whom we read about in the New Testament and worship in the church? Was Jesus really raised from the dead? Is he really the divine Lord of lords?
I've really gotten to play a lot of different things, starting with 'Southpaw.' For 'Spotlight,' I got to play this amazing journalist, Sacha Pfeiffer, who worked at the 'Boston Globe' when they broke the story about the sex scandal in the Catholic Church.
The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture.
My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
In other words, the Church acknowledges Science as the higher authority.
The church must always show compassion, always.
I love, when I'm on holiday in cities, going into church and feeling that reverence and that kind of automatic respect: the sort of magic which exists in those kind of religious temples.
