Preston Ulmer > Quotes

“If people are gardens, knowledge should be treated like the seeds that will, eventually, grow. We need to make sure that the seeds we are planting will produce something of the Kingdom when fully grown. And you can’t rush it. Some questions need to be revisited for years before the answer takes. Some answers need to be revisited for years for a good question to take.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Salt doesn’t seek attention. It seeks to make whatever it is being sprinkled on so desirable that people come back for more.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Let me tell you what drew me back into the Christian faith. It was a person, not a program. A detour, not a destination. A commitment, not a conversion. A patience, not a prayer.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“The purpose of the next nine chapters is to show that the Doubters’ Club isn’t a new thing to do. It’s a new way to do everything. It is a lifestyle that builds bridges where there used to be barriers and sets us free from “closing the deal” every time we converse with people who do not think like us. In fact, making disciples isn’t getting people to think like us at all. Thinking like us may be the barrier, not the bridge.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Actually, most of the evil in this world is done by and through “good” intentions. The cause of evil is stupidity, not malice. AYN RAND Elphie, now that we’re friends, I’ve decided to make you my new project. GLINDA, Wicked the Musical”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“We must not politicize it. The quickest way to suck God’s justice out of a room is by politicizing it.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Is every event really a Trojan horse to turn them into one of us? Are we unable to have genuine relationships with nonbelievers? What would happen if we faced up to what drives us? Does anyone in the church know this is a problem?”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Another step toward the right side of the scale is to share stories where the other person is the hero.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Thanks for asking. Everyone knows someone who knows everything. At least, they think they know everything.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Pressure works in one of two ways:”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“We have to be willing to confess that there is some intrinsic chaos and confusion within the church.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Perhaps most revolutionary of them all, it was someone who led with their weakness, not their strength.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“I disagree with you. It’s an unfortunate confession: Christians are known more for what we are against than what we are for.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“For example, Christians evangelize because if they were lost and going to hell, they would want someone to tell them about Jesus. Therefore, they feel that, according to the Golden Rule, they should be telling others about Jesus.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“As they continue to research the decline of religion, they stated that “the most momentous change in American religion over the last 25 years has been the growth of the religious nones from 5 percent in 1994 to 34 percent in 2019.”[1]”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“In the introduction to his book Jesus Is the Question, Martin Copenhaver cites two published studies that point out Jesus’ answer-to-question ratio is 1:100.[7] For every answer Jesus gives, the Gospels record that he asks a hundred questions.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“He was persuasive, not argumentative. Curious, not critical. Careful, not crushing. Asked, but didn’t assume. Connected before he corrected. Jesus was not the loudest proclaimer of what he believed to be true, but he was the busiest doer of what he knew to be love.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Will I be committed to the cleanup if this disagreement causes a mess? Anyone can light a fuse. Not everyone has the commitment to rebuild when the bomb goes off.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“these three categories build on themselves to show deeper relationships between the characters we are reading about.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“I would dare say that celebrating the person who thinks and believes like us is far older than the seventeenth century. The ironic part of it all is that every one of us thinks we are right.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“When things we abstain from doing become the greatest identifier of who we are, it is difficult for people to see the One who is for them.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Whether the questions are old or new—or angry varieties of either—we should be more engaging and less confrontational in our sharing of the good news. We must find new hinges upon which to swing open new doors. RANDY NEWMAN, Questioning Evangelism”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“For people who don’t yet have Jesus, they have us.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Jesus is the “yes” face of God, always inviting us into his life and requesting that we invite him into ours. Eugene Peterson captured the essence of this when he translated John 16:33 in The Message: [Jesus said,] “I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“You do not need to spend needless energy justifying your association with people who are not like you. Instead, expend your energy on those people by being with and for them.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Rather than seeing people as in or out, what if we started seeing people by their degree of distance from Jesus?”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“So, you’re telling me there’s a chance? LLOYD CHRISTMAS, Dumb and Dumber”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Instead of defending the reputation of the flock, what if we returned to the actions of the Shepherd? The Shepherd whose friendship with sinners was so fierce, he was stereotyped as one of them:”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“Something feels toxic when our moral convictions can be boiled down to red or blue. If you are going to be red, let it be because you have bled for your enemies. And if you are going to be blue, let it be because you have sat in sorrow with people who are experiencing pain. The Kingdom of God is holy. Meaning, it is set apart. It is other.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded

“I like listening to people who know what they are talking about. It becomes impressive, though, when they know who they are talking to.”
― Preston Ulmer, The Doubters' Club: Good-Faith Conversations with Skeptics, Atheists, and the Spiritually Wounded