Nearly every Christian Scientist I have known has been involved with the Church from childhood and has a long family connection to it, going back several generations.
My family for several generations have been members of the Unitarian Church.
The Christian life is not just our own private affair. If we have been born again into God's family, not only has he become our Father but every other Christian believer in the world, whatever his nation or denomination, has become our brother or sister in Christ. But it is no good supposing that membership of the universal Church of Christ is enough; we must belong to some local branch of it. Every Christian's place is in a local church. sharing in its worship, its fellowship, and its witness.
The true idea of a church has not yet been shown the world, a visible Church, I mean, unless it was in the very earliest times; yes, the twelve disciples bound to their Lord in love, to do his work forever, that was a church, a Christian family.
My grandmother and mother were from Italy, so I was raised Catholic. That kind of just meant going to church on Easter and Christmas. I saw a radical transformation in my family when they started going to a Christian church. I watched them fall in love with God.
Memories were in my mind during nearly all the concerts I've done, and I realized the deep connection to my childhood, when I went out in the morning and the only thing my mom said was, "Come back before dark." What trust and what freedom!
My dad's side of the family ... they're a real bizarre bunch, going back to the original colonies. That side's got a real tough strain of alcoholism. It goes back generations and generations, so that you can't remember when there was a sober grandfather.
Along with church monies and the United Way, most of the others that I give the most to are organizations for which I have some personal connection in that they have affected family members; i.e., kidney, cancer, heart, and organ donation. My wife and I have also contributed to and been heavily involved with the Boys and Girls Club of Utah County.
I was in the Boy Scouts for about four years until my troop disbanded. It is really one of the best activities youths can get involved in and nearly every scout I have known has been a class act due to the discipline the Scouts have instilled in them.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.
Every Christian in America has some minimal responsibility to get involved in helping the poor brethren in the church in other countries.
He was definitely known as the foremost man killer in the West; however there's controversy about virtually every killing that he was known to have been involved in.
In a Christian Theocracy, you'll never be Christian enough. There's always going to be somebody there with another version of Christianity that is more Christian than you and you're going to lose the freedom to make the choice because you didn't defend the Separation of Church and State when you had the chance.
I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible of all accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worse possible corruption. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul.
I learned that money's not happiness. The more famous I am and the more money I make, the closer I stay to my family and friends that I've known since junior high school. True happiness to me is the connection with fellow human beings I've known for a long time.
I grew up in a Christian home, but was nearly 17 before I realized I had to make my own decision to place my trust in Christ. Salvation cannot be earned by doing good works or going to church, and can't be automatically passed on from Christian parents. Salvation is a free gift from God, who sent His Son Jesus Christ to die in our place.