Meredith Martinez

“The point of “exile” language is exactly the opposite of the idea that Western Christians should lament or resent losing a “Christian culture.” The point is that in every place and every culture, from the first to the second comings of Jesus, every Christian community are to be “strangers and exiles.”
― Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

“If exile language is used to bemoan a “darkening” or “growingly hostile” culture, rather than to see our situation as fundamentally the same as every other era before us, then we don’t understand what the Bible means by exile. Exile language does away with both a sense of entitlement and with a siege mentality. We don’t look to merge into whatever seems “normal” around us—and we don’t rage when we’re not accommodated there. We see our normal situation as not occupation but pilgrimage.”
― Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America

“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Those who can still feel shame, whose consciences are still vulnerable to conviction by the Holy Spirit, will then step back or step away, and the shameless will inherit, if not the earth, then at least the political party leadership or the congregation or the school board or the social media feed.”
― Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America