A Quote By Leonardo Boff Which Admittedly Has Been Posted in This Journal Before

[alixtii]

. . . but could probably stand to be posted here again.

"First of all comes the experience of mystery, the experience of God. Only afterward does faith supervene. Faith is not primarily adhesion to a teaching that gives access to revelation and the supernatural. Then faith would be tantamount to ideology, in the sense of an idea or belief inculcated in someone from the outside. This extrinsic character of so-called faith can give rise to various forms of fundamentalism and religious warfare. All groups tend to affirm their own truths to the exclusion of all others. Faith is meaningful and possess truthes only when it represents a response to an experience of God made personally and communally. Then faith is the expression of an encounter with God which embraces all existence and feeling--the heart, the intellect, and the will."

I really love that quote.