Mike Duran > Quotes

“They strain over gnats and swallow camels. They also cannibalize each other for power.”
― Mike Duran, The Resurrection

“People are like germs, only bigger. That bit of wisdom has proven true, for the most part. Humans are little more than highly evolved bacteria, leeches on a rotting ball of clay. It’s depressing, I know.”
― Mike Duran, The Ghost Box

“People are different, Reagan. They have different experiences. They see things. Know things. Things happen that you can’t always explain. I just… I don’t understand how someone can go through life dismissing everything. Forcing everything into a box. The world’s too darned big.”
― Mike Duran, The Ghost Box

“Truth be told, there wasn't a single one of them who didn't deserve a lightning bolt from the Almighty. Everything else was straight mercy.”
― Mike Duran, The Telling

“But you’ve got three churches in this city, and from what I understand, none of them get along. They talk about love and unity and truth and blah-de-blah. Fact is, they spend more time swapping disgruntled members and badmouthing each other than doin’ anything constructive.”
― Mike Duran, The Resurrection: A Novel

“It’s led me to believe that one of the surest signs of a dysfunctional church is perpetual navel gazing. When everything is about us—our theology, our pastor, our building, our ministries, our finances—something is sure to go wrong.”
― Mike Duran, discipl·ish: My Unconventional Pilgrimage thru Faith, Art, & Evangelical Culture

“Alas, I believe the Modern Era and its disbelief in devils was when the Imperia lost steam. Hard to fight monsters when they’re mythologized.”
― Mike Duran, The Ghost Box

“As long as miracles are possible, plenty of weird, wacky, unexplained ones will happen. And this is what most of us don’t like. We want to box God in, slip a spiritual condom on so we don’t contract Pentecostalism.”
― Mike Duran, discipl·ish: My Unconventional Pilgrimage thru Faith, Art, & Evangelical Culture

“So many questions. So much pain. I felt like someone had ripped open my chest only to discover a dark, rotting cavity. Nevertheless, my silence was my surrender. Klammer motioned to Blondie, who stepped to the”
― Mike Duran, The Ghost Box

“IT COMES FROM the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-interest.”
― Mike Duran, discipl·ish: My Unconventional Pilgrimage thru Faith, Art, & Evangelical Culture

“This culture gave rise to review sites and media watchdog groups (part of evangelicalism’s aforementioned cultural critique) who became moral bean counters, neatly cataloging infractions for concerned parents or easily offended saints. For example, one media watchdog group noted that the popular film The Blind Side (2009), despite a positive portrayal of evangelicals and a redemptive message, contained 10 sexual references, 3 scatological terms, 8 anatomical terms, and 7 mild obscenities — offenses that eventually resulted in Lifeway, one of the largest Christian bookstore chains in the world, removing the movie from its shelves.”
― Mike Duran, Christian Horror: On the Compatibility of a Biblical Worldview and the Horror Genre

“I took up reading fiction again. Part of this was due to the fact that some of my favorite Christian writers (like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton) wrote fiction. This was surprising, mainly because fiction was not a main staple of most of the pastors I knew. In fact, the consensus seemed to be that reading fiction was a waste of time. What pastors needed was books on theology, pastoral counseling, and administration, not fairy tales and outer space adventures. However, I discovered just the opposite--reading fiction stoked my imagination. Good stories spoke in ways that exposition and data could not. As some have said, 'thou shalt not' speaks to the head, but 'once upon a time' speaks to the heart. Reinforcing this was the fact that Jesus, the greatest teacher ever, was a prolific storyteller.”
― Mike Duran, discipl·ish: My Unconventional Pilgrimage thru Faith, Art, & Evangelical Culture

“See, Daddy used to say that our body is like a Christmas present—the good stuff’s on the inside. When we die, it’s God’s way of unwrapping us.”
― Mike Duran, The Resurrection: A Novel

“contact is possible, Ellie”
― Mike Duran, The Ghost Box