8 Quotes by Alister McGrath

The story we believe we are in determines what we think about ourselves and consequently how we live. For Lewis, Christianity doesn't just make sense of things. It changes our stories. It invites us to enter into, and be part of, a new story.

Beneath all the rhetoric about relevance lies a profoundly disturbing possibility - that people may base their lives upon an illusion, upon a blatant lie. The attractiveness of a belief is all too often inversely proportional to its truth... To allow "relevance" to be given greater weight than truth is a mark of intellectual shallowness and moral irresponsibility.

The hallmark of intelligence is not whether one believes in God or not, but the quality of the processes that underlie one’s beliefs.

In the early 1920s, Lewis hoped to be remembered as an atheist poet, whose bitter and forceful condemnations of an uncaring and absent God would rid the world of any lingering religious belief. Today, he is remembered as one of the greatest Christian apologists of all time. He has become an ingredient of that greater story, and an encouragement to us to find our own place.

TO BE asked to minister without an informing vision of God (which is what theology is really all about), however, is like being told to make bricks without straw. What keeps people going in ministry, and what, in my experience, congregations are longing for, is an exciting and empowering vision of God, articulated in a theology that is integrated with worship, prayer, and social action.

To its critics, the study of theology distracts from real life. But, at its best, theology inspires and informs precisely the committed and caring ministry.

Faith involves putting to death the old self and rising to a new life. We do not lose our individuality; rather, we gain a new identity while still remaining individuals who are loved by God. In other words, we become new individuals without ceasing to be individuals.

Good does not triumph unless good people rise to the challenge that is around them.