In her article “Catholic Propaganda” (1927), Sigrid Undset wrote: “There is no room in the Catholic Church for different concepts about the being of God or about the divine-human nature of Jesus Christ or about the motherhood of the Virgin Mary; because Christ himself is the way to God’s kingdom and because his death on the Cross is the secret which opens God’s kingdom to the descendants of Adam, his blood truly cleanses the sinner from all his sin, his body is truly the food which is the life of believers.” (Undset 1993).

“Christ is the still point of the turning world.” (Eliot, as cited in Castle 2002, 219).

“The division between those who accept, and those who deny, Christian revelation I take to be the most profound division between human beings.” (Eliot, as cited in Yancey 1999, 88).

“Charity begins today. Today somebody is suffering, today somebody is in the street, today somebody is hungry. Our work is for today, yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come - today, we have only today to make Jesus known, loved, served, fed, clothed, sheltered, etc. Today - do not to wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow might not come. Tomorrow we will not have them if we do not feed them today.” (Mother Teresa 1991).

“Christ has come to bring the good news for you and for me. And as if that was not enough - it was not enough to become a man - He died on the cross to show that greater love, and He died for you and for me and for that leper and for that man dying of hunger and that naked person lying in the street not only of Calcutta, but of Africa, and New York, and London, and Oslo - and insisted that we love one another as He loves each one of us.” (Mother Teresa, as cited in Thee 1995, 499).

In Reverence for Life Schweitzer stated: “To hope, to keep silent, and to work alone - that is what we must learn to do if we really want to labor in the true spirit. But what exactly does it involve, this plowing? The plowman does not pull the plow. He does not push it. He only directs it. That is just how events move in our lives. We can do nothing but guide them straight in the direction which leads to our Lord Jesus Christ, striving toward him in all we do and experience. Strive toward him, and the furrow will plow itself.” (Schweitzer 1969, 47).

“If there is any place on earth where earthly distinctions vanish it is in the church, in the presence of God. The nearer the people get to the heart of Christ, the nearer they get to each other, irrespective of earthly conditions.” (Theodore Roosevelt, The Free Citizen, New York, The Macmillan Company, Hermann Hagedorn - editor, 1956, p. 31).

11. FREDERIK DE KLERK, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

“Christians should forgive one another because this is the command of the Lord and the precondition that He sets for our own forgiveness.

Ultimately, however, in our relationship with God, our sins can be forgiven only through the sacrifice and intercession of His Son, Jesus Christ. This, in its deepest sense, is the meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation and it leads not necessarily to peace in this world, but to the peace that passes all understanding.” (de Klerk 1997).

“The Scriptures clearly teach that if men are to be saved they must be saved through Christ. He alone can deliver them from the power of sin and its penalty. His death made salvation possible.

The Word of God sets forth the conditions of salvation. God has chosen to have these conditions made known through human instruments. Christians have a duty to preach Christ to every creature. The burning question for every Christian then is: Shall hundreds of millions of people now living, who need Christ and are capable of receiving help from Him, pass away without having even the opportunity to know Him?” (Mott, as cited in DuBose 1979).

“It is our duty to evangelize the world because we owe all men the gospel.

What a crime against mankind to keep a knowledge of the mission of Christ from two thirds of the human race! It is our duty to evangelize the world in this generation because of the missionary command of Christ.” (John R. Mott 1944).

“Love of God does not mean we must love Him first. Rather, He loved us first, creating the world and leaving it in our care, sending His only son to us to spread the gospel, and, finally, opening the way for us to deliver ourselves from sin through the crucifixion of His innocent son, Jesus. Through Jesus’ resurrection, God gave us hope for eternal life.” (Kim Dae-jung, Prison Writings, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

“We believe firmly in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

If one is truly devoted to the religion of Jesus he will seek to rid the earth of social evils. The gospel is social as well as personal.” (King, as cited in Oates 1982, 81-82).

“Being born again is a new life, not of perfection but of striving, stretching, and searching - a life of intimacy with God through Holy Spirit. There must first be an emptying, and then a refilling. To the extent that we want to know, understand, and experience God, we can find all this in Jesus. It is a highly personal and subjective experience, possible only if we are searching for greater truths about ourselves and God.” (Carter 1998, 20-21).

16. SPINOZA, Dutch-Jewish philosopher, the chief exponent of modern rationalism

     Spinoza looked on Jesus Christ as a man of transcendent moral genius, standing out above Moses and the prophets. Spinoza looked on Jesus as a Son of God, but not as a God. In discussing the nature of prophetic vision he wrote:  

     “I believe not that any man ever came to that singular height of perfection but Christ, to whom the ordinances of God that lead men to salvation were revealed, not in words or visions, but immediately: so that God manifested himself to the apostles by the mind of Christ, as formerly to Moses by means of a voice in the air. And therefore the voice of Christ may be called, like that which Moses heard, the voice of God. In this sense we may likewise say that the wisdom of God, that is, a wisdom above man’s, took man’s nature in Christ, and that Christ is the way of salvation.” (Spinoza, as cited in Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy, Adamant Media Corporation, Boston, 2000, 352).  

17. BLAISE PASCAL, founder of Hydrostatics and Hydrodynamics

“Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.” (Pascal 1910, No. 528).

“Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery; with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery; in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.” (Pascal 1910, No. 545-546).

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