John F. Alexander > Quotes

“Church isn’t the sort of thing you can go to. You can be the church, you can become the church, you can even do church, but you can’t go to church. (Nowhere does the New Testament mention going to church.) One way of saying it is that church is the sort of thing that you become part of at the cost of your life. You’re the church whenever you’re with other Christians in such a way that you depend on each other enough that to do it you have to die to yourself. In that situation and almost only in that situation, can you love each other, serve each other, live in unity, and speak the truth to each other in love the way Ephesians 4 teaches.”
― John F. Alexander, Being Church: Reflections on How to Live as the People of God

“Much of the secret of the Bible is that it holds on to extravagant hope while cataloging the reality of sin. And the Bible doesn’t seem to find that self-contradictory. The wonderful promises are available, but we human beings keep choosing evil instead. It’s up to us. It’s a matter of freedom, of choice. We can live the wonderful lives God promises, or we’re free to be a mess. Don’t ask about the Holocaust, “Where was God?” Ask, “Where were we?” It was people who murdered Jews, Poles, Gypsies, gays, and the disabled, and it was other people who let them be murdered.”
― John F. Alexander, Being Church: Reflections on How to Live as the People of God