Stanley Hauerwas, Working with Words (2011)

“To learn to follow Jesus is the training necessary to become a human being. To be a human being is not a natural condition but requires training. The kind of training required, moreover, has everything to do with death. To follow Jesus is go with him to Jerusalem where he will be crucified. To follow Jesus, therefore, is to undergo a training that refuses to let death, even death at the hands of enemies, determine the shape of our living.”

Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus (1999)

“Jesus is known and loved in the community of faith not as an object of study but as a personal presence and sustaining power.”

Walter Wink, The Human Being (2002)

“My deepest interest in encountering Jesus is to be delivered from a stunted soul, a limited mind, and an unjust social order.”

Huston Smith, The Soul of Christianity (2005)

“Everything that came from Jesus’ lips worked like a magnifying glass to focus human awareness on the two most important facts about life: God’s overwhelming love of humanity, and the need for people to accept that love and let it flow through them…” 

Brennan Manning, A Glimpse of Jesus (2004)

“Like any good teacher, Jesus frequently repeats himself. He never tires of speaking of the quality of life in the Kingdom and the surpassing joy of the reign of God.”

Todd Hunter, What Jesus Intended (2023)

“Our authentic aspirations define whether our practice of religion is unhealthy darkness or full of light. Jesus knows that we can’t have it both ways.”