Robert Mcafee Brown Quotes

True patriotism is not worship of our nation but rather, in the light of our worship of the God of justice, to conform our nation's ways of justice.

One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.

How does one keep from “growing old inside”? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are dispensable.

the youth movements could not separate religious formation from political formation

The theory of dependence will take the wrong path and lead to deception if the analysis is not put within the framework of the worldwide class struggle.

The denunciation of injustice implies the rejection of the use of Christianity to legitimize the established order.

man is saved if he opens himself to God and to others even if he is not clearly aware that he is doing so. This is valid for Christians and non-Christians alike — for all people. . . . We can no longer speak properly of a profane world. A qualitative and intensive approach replaces a quantitative and extensive one.

There are not two histories, one profane and one sacred, 'juxtaposed' or 'closely linked.' Rather there is only one human destiny.

the technical term bara designating the original creation, was used for the first time by Second Isaiah to refer to the creation of Israel.

The God of Exodus is the God of history and of political liberation more than he is the God of nature.

the Exodus from Egypt, the home of the sacred monarchy, reinforces this idea: it is the 'desacralization' of social praxis. . . . In Egypt, work is alienated and, far from building a just society, contributes rather to increasing injustice and to widening the gap between exploiters and exploited.

Other religions think in terms of cosmos and nature; Christianity, rooted in Biblical sources, thinks in terms of history.

not he whom I find in my path, but rather he in whose path I place myself, he whom I approach and actively seek.

But there is one thing that is privileged to be a paradoxical sign of God, in relation to which men are able to manifest their deepest commitment — our Neighbor. The sacrament of our Neighbor!

Charity is today a 'political charity'. . . . it means the transformation of a society structured to benefit a few who appropriate to themselves the value of the work of others. this transformation ought to be directed toward a radical change in the foundation of society, that is, the private ownership of the means of production.

History is no longer, as it was for the Greeks, an anamnesis, a remembrance. Ir is rather a thrust into the future.

Since the Enlightenment, the political order is an order of freedom. The political structures are no longer given, previous to man's freedom, but are rather realities based on freedom, taken on and modified by man. . . . This new definition of politics carefully distinguishes between state and society. The distinction . . . allows us to differentiate between the public sphere of the state of the Church (or the combination of them) as powers from the public sphere 'in which the interests of all men as a social group are expressed.

But then the trouble begins. Jesus, not content to quit when he is ahead, points out that the gifts of God do not come automatically to those who attend the Temple And this is really too much! … The idea that the message is for worthless outsiders rather than us! The very notion that unbelievers will be the recipients of God’s favor and we will not! —Robert McAfee Brown