Spiritual Activism Quotes

Churches should not be directly involved in politics.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

My work has been in the field of engaged Buddhism. That is my own practice, which began in 1965 that formed the base for the work I was doing in the civil rights and anti-war movement.

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time.

When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter--they are all hell on earth. Jesus' desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth. What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about Hell here and now. As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth.

It's in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.

As far as nonviolence and Spiritual Activism, Marshall Rosenberg is it! Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, is essential reading for anyone who wants to improve their communication skills. Applying the concepts within the book will help guide the reader towards a more loving, compassionate, and nonviolent way of understanding and functioning with others, and foster more compassion in the world. I highly recommend this book.

World conditions challenge us to look beyond the status quo for responses to the pain of our times. We look to powers within as well as powers without. A new, spiritually based social activism is beginning to assert itself. It stems not from hating what is wrong and trying to fight it, but from loving what could be and making the commitment to bring it forth.

To those who say "Sufism is apolitical" or "no politics," I respond: "No politics is politics." Look at the very old African Sufi tradition, the Asian Sufi tradition, or the North African Sufi tradition. Then you get it and understand what Sufism is all about wisdom, courage and resistance.

We need less travelling by jet plaes from congress to congress... but more kneeling and praying and pleading to God to have mercy on us, more crying to God to arise and scatter his enemies and make himself known.

A strong case can be made for religious leaders to speak out on political issues.

Prayer is the most tangible expression of trust in God. If we would trust God for our persecuted brothers and sisters in other countries, we must be diligent in prayer for their rulers. If we would trust God when decisions of government in our own country go against our best interests, we must pray for His working in the hearts of those officials and legislators who make those decisions. The truth that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord is meant to be a stimulus to prayer, not a stimulus to a fatalistic attitude.

I am certain a great many believers and bible readers do believe in social justice.

Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

Politics are not the task of a Christian.

I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable...eve rything that might make us closed in on ourselves.

People on a spiritual path - personal growth, spiritual practice, recovery, yoga and so forth - are the last people who should be sitting out the social and political issues of our day.

Everything that we are about as African people in terms of our struggle for justice and freedom started in the church. There is no separation of the sacred and secular—of the church and state—in Black America. There is no separation.

Spirituality which inspires activism and, similarly, politics which move the spirit - which draw from the deep-seated place of our greatest longings for freedom - give meaning to our lives.

When it comes to engaging and influencing culture, too many Christians think too highly of political activism.

I write about spirituality not so we get strong from within and achieve some state of nirvana and then distance ourselves from the real world. I write about it so we can feel empowered to doing the critical work that this generation of black women are charged with doing.

Spirituality promotes passivity when the domain of spirit is defined as outside the world. When this world is the terrain of spirit, we ourselves become actors in the story, and this world becomes the realm in which the sacred must be honored and freedom created.

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.

From my Christian formation've gotten my ideals and technique Gandhi action

We need a new order of ministers to stand in pulpits. It's not enough to sing and praise God in worship services. Any religion that doesn't encourage us to work together to end the needless suffering all around us is godless.