Kenneth Scott Latourette Quotes

That free will was demonstrated in the placing of temptation before man with the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree which would give him a knowledge of good and evil, with the disturbing moral conflict to which that awareness would give rise.

The Psalms, the anthology of the hymns of Israel, are still used by Christians.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY WAS DUE PRIMARILY TO A NEW BURST OF RELIGIOUS LIFE EMANATING FROM THE CHRISTIAN IMPULSE. . . . NEVER IN ANY CORRESPONDING LENGTH OF TIME HAD THE CHRISTIAN IMPULSE GIVEN RISE TO SO MANY NEW MOVEMENTS. NEVER HAD IT HAD QUITE SO GREAT AN EFFECT UPON WESTERN EUROPEAN PEOPLES. IT WAS FROM THIS ABOUNDING VIGOR THAT THERE ISSUED THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE WHICH DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SO AUGMENTED THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH AND THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.

In the third century after Christ the faith continued to spread.

The prophets and the writers of the Psalms were clear that God was continuing to work in the universe and in all history. They declared that He had created the universe.

Christianity emerged from the religion of Israel. Or rather, it has as its background a persistent strain in that religion. To that strain Christians have looked back, and rightly, as the preparation in history for their faith.

As the centuries pass, the evidence is accumulating that, measured by His effect on history, Jesus is the most influential life ever lived on this planet.

The history of Christianity, therefore, must be of concern to all who are interested in the record of man and particularly to all who seek to understand the contemporary human scene.

When contrasted with the much longer time that life has been present, the course of Christianity thus far is but a brief moment.

Although when Christianity appeared the total population of the planet was only a fraction of that of the twentieth century, most of the earth’s surface was quite outside the Mediterranean world, Persia, India, and China.

Compared with the thousands of years in which human life has been on this planet, Christianity is a recent development.

However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be, and however unpleasant it may be to acknowledge the fact, as a matter of plain history the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.