Fred Allen Quotes

I sang in the choir growing up and more recently served on the worship team at my church in California.

I believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time. But I wanted something not intellectual, some conviction not mental - in fact I wanted faith.

I'm not a big fan of religion for that reason. But I am a true believer in God, and I have great faith, and I think that a spiritual connection with something is a really important part of our experience. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the church.

Faith is not a thing which one 'loses', we merely cease to shape our lives by it.

We need to understand that Christianity is about changing; it is not about a religion.

Only God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Church has always been changing.

I sat next to a young woman on a plane once who bombarded me for five hours with how she had decided to be born again and so should I. I told her I was glad for her, but I hadn't used up being born the first time.

From the first time I saw Sid Caesar be funny I knew that's what I had to do.

Why do born-again people so often make you wish they'd never been born the first time?

I have a choir in my church, and we travel all over the world.

Music was brought up in the church.

My parents were in the local church choir, and I used to go along and sing and play the organ at all the weddings and christenings.

So many great singers we know have come from the church.

Singing is really where I got my start in church.

My wife converted me to religion. I never believed in hell until I married her.

I auditioned for a solo in church and got it. I was about seven and I sang a song called, 'Jesus, I Heard You Had a Big House' and I remember people standing up at the end and me thinking, 'Oh, I think I'm going to like this.' That's how it all began. Sounds funny to say you got your start in church, but I did.

I grew up the son of a Seventh Day Adventist minister, so I was really close to the church and sang church music between sips at my bottle, you know? I sat on the piano bench next to my mother. She was the church organist, so that music is deeply inside of me.

I like the story about Henry David Thoreau, who, when he was on his death bed, his family sent for a minister. The minister said, 'Henry, have you made your peace with God?' Thoreau said, 'I didn't know we'd quarreled.'

I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.

We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect. Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they are sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.

I just wanted to sing, in church or wherever.

I'm not sure that I would have become a Christian if I had continued to live in Hollywood because the notion wouldn't have occurred to me.

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.

God does guide the lives of individuals and does fill them with the Holy Ghost.