Robert McAfee Brown

“To be a person of faith is to live in the midst of the ambiguities of life.”

“The ecumenical movement is not a luxury, but a necessity.”

“The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.”

“Prophetic ministry is a ministry of inconvenience.”

“Part of the task of the prophet is to describe the world so vividly that people see how intolerable it is, and are moved to change it.”

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

“To be a Christian in a time of devastation is to be a person of hope.”

“Theology is not a private hobby. It has public consequences.”

“Dialogue is the only way to deal with the deepest differences that divide us. It is not a sign of weakness, but of strength.”

“The protest is not the end of the matter, but only the beginning. It is a sign that we are not content with the way things are.”

“A commitment to nonviolence means that we are prepared to suffer, but not to inflict suffering.”

“The task of the theologian is to listen to the world in all its secularity, and to try to interpret it in the light of the Gospel.”

“We are called to be signs of contradiction to the world.”