{"author":"Peter Rollins","author_id":"Peter+Rollins","total_quotes":13,"quotes":[{"text":"There is a deep sense in which we are all ghost towns. We are all haunted by the memory of those we love, those with whom we feel we have unfinished business. While they may no longer be with us, a faint aroma of their presence remains, a presence that haunts us until we make our peace with them and let them go. The problem, however, is that we tend to spend a great deal of energy in attempting to avoid the truth. We construct an image of ourselves that seeks to shield us from a confrontation with our ghosts. Hence we often encounter them only late at night, in the corridors of our dreams.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["death-of-a-loved-one","loss"],"id":9210,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["mysticism","religion","spirituality"],"id":41505,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed, it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the ‘truth’ with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy, as believing in the right way, as bringing love to the world around us and within us … that will cost us everything. For to live by that sword, as we all know, is to die by it.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["christianity","orthodoxy","religion","spirituality"],"id":94708,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"Our real beliefs are generally not to be found at the level of ego.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["doubts","emergent-church","inspirational-life"],"id":203445,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"Truly embracing the fragility and tensions of life...Brings with it the possibility of true joy.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["doubts","emergent-church","inspirational-life"],"id":235837,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"What we see taking place in the church today is the reduction of God to an idol.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["doubts","emergent-church","inspirational-life"],"id":255592,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"Here God is not approached as an object that we must love, but as a mystery present in the very act of love itself.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["love","mystery"],"id":265441,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"In contrast, the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God (a distinction that fundamentalism is unable to maintain).","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["theology"],"id":267527,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"What if the church should be less concerned with creating saints than creating a world where we do not need saints? A world where people like Mother Teresa and MLK would have nothing to do.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["church","saints"],"id":304609,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"},{"text":"The argument is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind.","author":"Peter Rollins","tags":["mysticism","religion","spirituality"],"id":310273,"author_id":"Peter+Rollins"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":13,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}