Church Discipline Quotes

… those who have been married to one wife, if she was a widow, and likewise those who after their ordination have unlawfully entered into one marriage that is, presbyters, and deacons, and subdeacons, being debarred for some short time from sacred ministration, and censured, shall be restored again to their proper rank, never advancing to any further rank, their unlawful marriage being openly dissolved.

I've never known anyone who has fallen into sin and been successfully restored by the formal church structure. Nor have I ever seen a formal church structure wisely deal with sin, enabling ministry to continue without interruption.

Then one day I read about a book that said that the church is the only army that shoots its wounded.

Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you.

The ordinary ministry is that which receives all of its direction from the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and from those means which God has appointed in the church for its continual edification.

There can, therefore, be no doubt that Presbyterians do carry out the principle that Church power vests in the Church itself, and that the people have a right to a substantive part in its discipline and government.

Obey your bishop! "Obey those set over you [Heb 13:17]," the teachers of the Church... I remind you, my dear friends, of what I said when I was with you: do not receive any outside or unknown preacher, unless he be sent by your bishop or preaches with the permission of the pope. For "how shall they preach unless they are sent [Rom 10:15]?"

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

The only people who had authority within the Church to stop Brendan Smyth from having contact with children were his Abbot in the Monastery in Kilnacrott and his Religious Superiors in the Norbertine Order.

You have heard me say, a great many times, that there is not that man or woman in this Church, and there never was and never will be, who turn up their noses at the counsel that is given them from the First Presidency, but who, unless they repent of and refrain from such conduct will eventually go out of the Church and go to hell, every one of them

I got put out of my church choir because my pastor said, 'We can't have baby sister singing the blues and coming in here and singing on Sunday morning.'

But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian.

The Divine Thing that made itself the foundation of the Church does not seem, to judge by his comments on the religious leadership of his day, to have hoped much from officers of a church.

[The apparent extensive sinning] is not more evils in this kind, nor nothing near so many by proportion, as in other places; but they are here more discovered and seen, and made publick by due search, inquisition, and due punishment; for the churches looke narrowly to their members, and the magistrates over all, more strictly than in other places.

The principle that certain sins should not receive the Church's testimony of forgiveness was probably no novelty at all, but had been applied in various churches; perhaps, however, with no strict consistency.

I never thought it was right to call up a man and try him because he erred in doctrine, it looks too much like methodism and not like Latter day Saintism. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be kicked out of their church. I want the liberty of believing as I please, it feels so good not to be tramelled.

Adulterers, in the first stages of the church, were excommunicated forever, and unqualified all their lives for bearing a part in Christian assemblies, notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, and all the appearances of the most unfeigned repentance.

This synod exhorts that neither prelates nor their subordinate clergy keep their offspring born of concubinage in their company, nor suffer them directly or indirectly to be promoted in their churches.

Jesus didn't just give hugs; He also gave a hammer. Paul didn't just pass on holy kisses; he also tirelessly dealt out swift and holy kicks to the rear end of the ancient church. The Bible has the manly stuff intact, and that is why it is such a great mystery how it got lost in the modern church.

The downfall of the church will not come from a lack of apologetic teaching; it will come from disintegration of the families in the church.

Yes, hypothetically, western Catholicism could revise the theme of celibacy. ... But for the moment, I am in favor of maintaining celibacy, with the pros and the cons it has, because we have ten centuries of more good experiences than bad ones.

I had this moment in church, which I think really turned me off. I was 7 or 8 years old and I was sitting at church, and we happened to be playing with the sunlight that was coming down from the stained glass window, and the monsignor came down to the pew and grabbed us by our neck collars and said, 'I'll deal with you.'

I personally believe, as church law sets out, that sanctions are an absolute last resort, particularly penal sanctions of depriving people of the sacraments.

It is the attitude of some leaders of God's people; they continually scold others, hurl reproaches at them, tell them to be quiet. ... 'Madam, take your crying child out of the church as I am preaching.' As if the cries of a child were not a sublime homily.

In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.