William G.

“Should we permit promiscuous sexual intercourse, as many ‘liberals’ wish to do? Impossible! It would be the ruin of family life. To meet the difficulty, the law of development has evolved a ‘golden bridge’ in the form of the prostitute. Just think of London without its 70,000 prostitutes! What would become of decency and morality, how would family life survive without them? How many women and girls would remain chaste? No, I believe the prostitute is necessary for the maintenance of the family.28”
― Paul Johnson, Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky

“Luke thus provides the last part of the prophetic pattern, that of rejection by the people. As Simeon foretold, this will be worked out in the subsequent narrative in terms of a division within Israel between those who do and those who do not accept this prophet. But this ominous opening already suggests a reason why many Jews later on in Acts reject the Gospel, precisely because it is meant for all (cf. e.g., Acts 13:44–52).”
― Luke Timothy Johnson, Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of Luke: Sacra Pagina, Paperback

“amen, I tell you: The locution is peculiar to Jesus. The term “amen” would ordinarily respond to the speech of another (“so be it,” “yes”), and come at the end. The Gospels show Jesus validating his own speech beforehand; an unmistakable sign of prophetic self-consciousness.”
― Luke Timothy Johnson, Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of Luke: Sacra Pagina, Paperback

“The general tendency in Emergence Christian theology is to question with real vigor and precision whether or not the connection between faith and doctrinal precision is essential to the soul’s salvation. Dogma, yes, but doctrine, not so much. That is, do one’s brainwaves and verbal utterances actually make one’s faith? Emergence Christians can often take this even a step further and reference those places of spiritual primacy where Jesus taught (as in his judgment of the nations as told in the Gospel of Matthew, for example) that a life is what constitutes and demonstrates a disciple, rather than a mind-set.”
― Phyllis A. Tickle, The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church