Religious Rhetoric Quotes

We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

Old-fashioned values may count when conservatives appear on the stump, but once conservatives are in office the only old-fashioned situation they care to revive is an economic regimen of low wages and lax regulations…. The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate. Values may "matter most" to voters, but they always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won

The rhetoric of anti-Catholicism, whether its sources are Protestant or secular, has always insisted that the church of Rome is the enemy of what you might call healthy sexuality.

This claim of being a Muslim State is of course only a camouflage. It is a screen to dupe the common man, so that he may not see clearly that Pakistan is a feudal State in which a clique is trying by these methods to maintain itself in power.

All extremists derive from one pool. This extreme mind-set is nurtured by religious rhetoric that needs to be reformed.

The preachers are the greatest problem in the United States of America.

One proposes raising the value of specie when the King's debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal: another proposes a pretence of a war, that money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded as soon as that was done; and this with such appearances of religion as might work on the people, and make them impute it to the piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the lives of his subjects.

As a social and as a personal force, religion has become a dependent variable. It does not originate; it reacts. It does not denounce; it adapts. It does not set forth new models of conduct and sensibility; it imitates. Its rhetoric is without deep appeal; the worship it organizes is without piety. It has become less a revitalization of the spirit in permanent tension with the world than a respectable distraction from the sourness of life.

Jerry Falwell says, on Pat Robertson's program, that the reason we got attacked on 9/11 is that we were accommodating the ACLU and abortion and homosexuals and feminists in America, so God smacked us down.

Most sermons sound to me like commercials - but I can't make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.

We think the Republicans are the ones who started this fundamentalist religion claptrap, you know? It was Jimmy Carter. He's the one who talked about, you know, "I'm a born-again Christian. I pray all the time. I do this," etc.

Indeed, one modern President abjured God altogether, ending speeches with a chaste 'Thank you very much.' This was Jimmy Carter, the most genuinely devout President of the postwar period.

If America leads a blessed life, then why did God put all of our oil under people who hate us?

I just think the way (for instance) evangelicals talk about God or Jesus, as in "Jesus says" or "the Bible says" points up a lack of honesty.

George Bush, within a week of this [the 9/11 attacks], in a speech, attempting to distinguish US from the Muslim fundamentalists, said Our God is the God who named the stars. The problem is: two-thirds of all stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don't think he knew this. That would confound the point that he was making.

It's not that I disagreed with Bush's economic policy... I believed he was a child of Satan here to destroy the planet.

Why, I can't help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious defence? One might have supposed him amply capable of looking after himself.

If you go to the Lincoln Memorial, the Second Inaugural is probably the most religious speech ever given by an American President. In its 732 words, it references God 14 times and has two verses of the Bible.

I've been a social gospel-er and a person who sees politics as a central dynamic to the encoding of religious rhetoric.

I grew up in a little Methodist church that was very rural, very community support-oriented, made up of great people who talked about love and grace and the spiritual experience, but only in rhetorical terms.

One sees a trend in our political and legal cultures toward treating religious beliefs as arbitrary and unimportant, a trend supported by a rhetoric that implies that there is something wrong with religious devotion.

It was very interesting to me that when Louisiana was destroyed in that flood the fundamentalists were very quick to say, it's the punishment of God on a sinful city. Now that the oil industry has been so hard hit in Galveston, are they up on their pulpits saying, God is punishing the oil industry? No, no, no!

Religious speech is extreme, emotional, and motivational. It is anti-literal, relying on metaphor, allusion, and other rhetorical devices, and it assumes knowledge within a community of believers.

To the government, terrorism committed by people who happen to be Muslim is not in any way a reflection of legitimate interpretation of Islam. You might find this hard to believe, but if you're doubting any of this, just search your own memory. All the times that we have heard that Islam's a religion of peace and that we can't use the word "terrorism" to describe it and Obama will not use it. And then remember all the times that this administration actually claims that violence by white right-wing white Christians poses a greater threat to the people of America than Islam.

HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.