24 Quotes by William Stringfellow

The Church must be free to be poor in order to minister among the poor.

Acceptance of another person is acceptance of the other as he is, without entailing any demands that he change in any empirical way. This boy is an addict, and while I would rejoice if he were freed from this affliction, that would not change or increase my acceptance of him as a person. And though I am not an addict, that makes me no better nor any worse than he. I am not his judge. I am just his friend.

In other words, the most notorious, plain, and victorious truth of God is that God participates in our history – even yours and mine. Our history – all our anxieties – have become the scene of His presence and the matter of his care. We are safe. We are free. Wherever we turn we shall discover that God is already there. Therefore, wherever it be, fear not, be thankful, rejoice, and boast of God.

The separation of religion from the practical affairs of society is a convenient doctrine for those who fear that social change would threaten of modify their own political and social self-interest.

The Christian social witness is achieved only insofar as Christians are deeply implicated in the real life of society – in unions and political clubs and citizen groups and the like; it is not made by Christian people gathering off by themselves in a parish house to study and discuss social issues.

Crisis – that is, the serious encounter of a man with exactly that which now threatens his own life, with that which represents, signifies, and warns of his own death – is always terrible, wonderful, eventually inescapable, saving and holy.