"The church buys the possibility of maintaining itself sat the price of concessions. … In so doing it disavows its martyrs. want to obey God, not men. But the church trades its support for advantages, honors, titles and money. It comes under the rule of mammon. Finally, it lets itself be bought so as to gain facilities for its celebrations, its evangelism, its good works, its preaching of the good Word. But Satan rejoices at all this, for as this gospel is not based on the cornerstone, on Jesus Christ, but on the power of the world thanks to which it is propagated."
React to this quote
More by Jacques Ellul
See allResonant Thoughts
"I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"The change began with John Stuart Mill and the Utopians. When Mill pointed out that economics had no ultima…"
— Robert Heilbroner"It is ugly in this world, and when the killing starts, the same stick will beat the black dog and the white."
— Nalo Hopkinson"I am beginning to feel like part of a travelling circus."
— James Baldwin"Oh, for Christ's sake shut up. Obviously the New Democratic Party is not only misinformed but uninterested …"
— Pierre Trudeau"Christopher Isherwood, The Art of Fiction No. 49" interview with W. I. Scobie, in The Paris Review"
— Christopher Isherwood"several music-pieces of Russolo; performed and recorded at Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo, 24 Feb. 2002,…"
— Luigi Russolo