Bruce L. Shelley

If we see some admirable work of human art, we are at once eager to investigate the nature, the manner, the end of its production; and the contemplation of the works of God stirs us with an incomparably greater longing to learn the principles, the method, the purpose of creation. This desire, this passion, has without doubt been implanted in us by God. And as the eye seeks light, as our body craves food, so our mind is impressed with the . . . natural desire to know the truth of God and the causes of what we observe." --Origen(185-254)

Christianity is the only major religion to have at its central event the humiliation of its God.

Church historians often ask, __s the church a movement or an institution?' . . . I think it is both. . . . I believe the people of God in history live in a tension between an ideal--the universal communion of saints--and the specific--the particular people in a definite time and place. The church__ mission in time calls for institutions: special rules, special leaders, special places. But when institutions themselves obstruct the spread of the gospel rather than advancing it, then movements of renewal arise to return to the church__ basic mission in the world.