Richard John Neuhaus Quotes

• In the absence of truth, power is the only game in town.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Truth, Games, Towns

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• We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person-of every human person.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Deeds, Way, Exit

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• Politics is chiefly a function of culture, at the heart of culture is morality, and at the heart of morality is religion.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Heart, Religion, Culture

  "2016 Race: Is looking for faith in a candidate the wrong way to approach the voting booth?" by Bruce Riley Ashford , Chris Pappalardo, www.foxnews.com. January 21, 2016.

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• Genuine tolerance does not mean ignoring differences as if differences made no difference. Genuine tolerance means engaging differences within a bond of civility and respect.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Mean, Differences, Tolerance

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• Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Eugenics, People, Politics

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• One must never underestimate the profound bigotry and anti-intellectualism and intolerance and illiberality of liberalism.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Profound, Underestimate, Intolerance

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• For paradise we long. For perfection we were made...This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives...This longing makes our loves and friendships possible, and so very unsatisfactory. The hunger is for...nothing less than perfect communion with the...one in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together...we must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled...The only death to fear is the death of settling for something less.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Perfect, Long, Promise

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• Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Orthodoxy, Sooner Or Later, Optional

  Richard John Neuhaus (2001). “The Best of "The Public Square".: Book two”, p.1, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Disguise is central to God's way of dealing with us human beings. Not because God is playing games with us but because the God who is beyond our knowing makes himself known in the disguise of what we can know. The Christian word for this is revelation, and the ultimate revelation came by incarnation. ... God is the master of disguises, in order that we might see.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Christian, Playing Games, Order

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• Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you don't want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against hope, and the unrelenting refusal to despair. We have not the right to despair, and, finally, we have not the reason to despair

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Christian, Hands, Optimism

  Richard John Neuhaus (2001). “The Best of "The Public Square".: Book two”, p.9, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Every day of the year is a good day to think more deeply about Good Friday, for Good Friday is the drama of the love by which our every day is sustained.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Friday, Drama, Good Day

  Richard John Neuhaus (2001). “Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross”, p.9, Basic Books

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• The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Firsts

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• Consumerism is, quite precisely, the consuming of life by the things consumed. It is living in a manner that is measured by having rather than being... and consumerism is hardly the sin of the rich. The poor, driven by discontent and envy, may be as consumed by what they do not have as the rich are consumed by what they do have. The question is not, certainly not most importantly, a question about economics. It is first and foremost a cultural and moral problem requiring a cultural and moral remedy.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Simple, Envy, May

  "Doing Well and Doing Good: The Challenge to the Christian Capitalist". Book by Richard John Neuhaus, 1992.

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• I do believe that those who compare the religious Right to the Nazis have fallen victim to polemical heat prostration.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Christian, Religious, Believe

  Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Cromartie, Ethics and Public Policy Center (Washington, D.C.) (1987). “Piety and politics: evangelicals and fundamentalists confront the world”, Ethics & Public Policy Center

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• If a church offers no truth that is not available in the general culture - in, for instance, the editorials of the New York Times or, for that matter, of National Review - there is not much reason to pay it attention.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  New York, Church, Culture

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• Respect for the dignity of others includes treating them as rational creatures capable of being persuadad by rational argument, even in the face of frequent evidence to the contrary.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Faces, Dignity, Argument

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• All my life I have prayed to God that I should remain religiously orthodox, culturally conservative, politically liberal and economically pragmatic.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Religion, Conservative, Should

  "Lutheran Minister Prodding U.S. Catholics to Lead Christian Revitalization" by Peter Steinfels, www.nytimes.com. 1988.

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• Whatever else the religious Right may be, it is a bonanza for its opponents... Reports of the great terror that is upon us are raising millions of dollars in fund appeals by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, Norman Lear's People for the American Way, and others who claim to believe that the religious Right is the greatest peril to American democracy since Joe McCarthy.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Christian, Religious, Believe

  Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Cromartie, Ethics and Public Policy Center (Washington, D.C.) (1987). “Piety and politics: evangelicals and fundamentalists confront the world”, Ethics & Public Policy Center

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• In the gay (Catholic) community, it would seem, the maxim is: love the sin and love the sinner, but hate anyone who calls it a sin or him a sinner.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Hate, Gay, Community

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• Progress without the reasoned freedom to think and act is regression to slavery.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Thinking, Progress, Slavery

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• One would like to believe that people who think of themselves as devout Christians would also behave in a manner that is in according with Christian ethics. But pastorally and existentially, I know that this is not the case, and never has been.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Christian, Atheist, Believe

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• If the cause of poverty is marginalization, the cure is inclusion.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Challenges, Inspire, Poverty

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• In legal parlance, that is called 'the rational person test,' ... That's where somebody else says, 'Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a 'rational' person - meaning, myself - in that circumstance would want to die.' So you move very quickly from so-called voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. These legal and medical developments are not simply hypothetical They're in the courts right now.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Moving, Ideas, Development

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• My hope that the Church will emerge as a strong leader in society is just that a hope. What I described in The Catholic Moment is not a prophecy but the outline of a possibility. There are no guarantees that my hopes expressed in The Catholic Moment will ever be realised.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Strong, Guarantees That, Leader

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• Religion as a human phenomenon is as riddled through with potential for both good and evil as any other phenomenon.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Evil, Good And Evil, Phenomenon

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