A Quote by Uwem Akpan

I'd say my religious life has shaped my worldview; my writing, I'd say too, is an extension of the pulpit...it reaches folks who don't care for organized religion in a different way.
Too many American (and other) Christians revel in feelings and/or morality and don't care to develop a biblically-shaped Zeitgeist or worldview. The result is folk religion rather than classical, historical Christianity which has always included sound theology.
We [Americans] have secularized the public life of our country in such a way to say something is religious is something negative. Religion has now turned into a way to discredit people. It is futile and dishonest to argue about religion. Religion is a phenomenological umbrella; there are all kinds of religions. It makes a difference when your religion is telling you something true or something false.
Americans are incredibly religious as a nation, and we have gotten that way by having the government stay out of religion and say religion is a private matter. The government doesn't take sides. Public schools don't promote or denigrate any religion.
Jesus doesn't say, "The religion founded in my name is the way, the truth, and the life, [and] what people say about me is the way." "Our way of worship, the Christian structure, is not the way," [he would say,] "I am. I am. If you want to know what life is all about, what it's supposed to be, where it's supposed to go, where it's supposed to derive its strength from, don't look at anything people say about me. Don't look at the faith that's been created. Look at my life, which is a life ultimately of sacrificial love."
In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula.
Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that.
I love it when the left and when the president say, 'Don't try to impose your values on us, you folks who hold your Bibles in your hand and cling to your guns.' They have values too. Our values are based on religion, based on life. Their values are based on a religion of self.
I don't know whether any religious leader would say that we must ultimately win, because we're on God's side. If they do say that, it's bad religion.
In France, it's really different the way you live. It's a non-religious country. The public space is not religious; religion is a private thing.
Some people suggest that a worldview is like a set of glasses that color the way you see the world around you. A Christian interprets the world one way, and an atheist interprets the same world a completely different way since he's looking through different worldview "glasses."
I am, as far as my politics reaches, 'King and Country' - no 'Innovations in Religion and Government' say I.
There have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, 'Well, I don't want those folks,' even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans.
Religion is the cause of all the problems in the world. I don’t believe in organized religion at all. It’s what separates people. One religion just represents fragments, it causes war. More people have died because of religious conflict than any other reason.
Religion is usually nothing but a supplement to or even a substitute for education, and nothing is religious in the strict sense which is not a product of freedom. Thus one can say: The freer, the more religious; and the more education, the less religion.
When people think about this religion, they'll say "voodoo" this and "voodoo" that in the way the Hollywood movies show it: the sticking of pins in dolls. It's very different than Vodou - which is a religion that comes to Haiti from our ancestors in Africa. I want to differentiate it from the stereotypical, sensationalized view that we see of the religion.
The Bible sits on the pulpit of hundreds of different religious sects.
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