Everyone with any experience of life is aware of the extent to which the characters of people he has known have been given their particular forms by … - H. Richard Niebuhr

The spirit of Jesus revolted against Jewish class distinctions between the righteous few and the unhallowed many He spoke to the outcast poor of the promise of the kingdom.

The movement of withdrawal and renunciation is a necessary element in every Christian life. ... It is an inevitable answer; but it is also inadequate. ... It is inadequate, for one thing, because it affirms in words what it denies in action; namely, the possibility of sole dependence on Jesus Christ to the exclusion of culture. Christ claims no man purely as a natural being, but always as one who has become human in a culture; who is not only in culture, but into whom culture has penetrated.

The chief rival to monotheism, I shall contend, is henotheism or that social faith which makes a finite society, whether cultural or religious, the object of trust as well as of loyalty and which tends to subvert even officially monotheistic institutions, such as the churches.