A sailor never becomes interested in religion without immediately learning to read, if he did not know how before, and regular habits, forehandedness (if I may use the word) in worldly affairs, and hours reclaimed from indolence and vice, which follow in the wake of a converted man, make it sure that he will instruct himself in the knowledge necessary and suitable to his calling. The religious change is the great object. If this is secured, there is no fear but that knowledge of things of the world will come in fast enough. With the sailor, as with all other men in fact, the cultivation of the intellect, and the spread of what is commonly called useful knowledge, while religious instruction is neglected, is little else than changing an ignorant sinner into an intelligent and powerful one.

—Richard Henry Dana
Two Years Before the Mast (1840), concluding chapter

The strong temptation of the Church and of Christians will be—already is—to change their mind after Palm Sunday, and to present the Gospel now not in itself and for itself as true, with an absolute claim upon obedience at all costs, but as the panacea for the ills of a non-Christian world or as the consecration of the best ideals of a deeply secularized society. Let us make no mistake! That is “another gospel,” which St. Paul saw was an “accursed” thing even when it comes to us on the lips of a good man or of an angel from heaven. There can be no other “Gospel” worth the name than the one of Jesus—the “good news” of those hammering paradoxes which he at least fulfilled up to the hilt. He that will save his life must lose it. If thine eye cause thee to stumble, cut it out.

If a man will be my disciple, let him deny himself. . . .

—Gregory Dix
“The King of the Jews,” Church Quarterly Review (January–March 1947)

Ambiguity is a dangerously potent tool—and not only in its shorter-term effects, as those who use it regularly can hardly be unaware. Although it may seem to leave the field open, it may also be intended to secure subversive changes in the future: this on “Hegelian” principles. If we call traditional Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage the thesis (T), and call the desired changes to that teaching the antithesis (A), putting the thesis and antithesis together, we get a synthesis (S). In matters of moral doctrine this is a distinctively subversive procedure, since if the antithesis (A) is in radical contradiction to the thesis (T), then the synthesis (S) will itself not only be faulty but will become the basis for further ill-founded deductions.

—John M. Rist
Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience (2023), 187–188

In addition to the well-known “history of Christianity,” which delineates the transgressions of bishops, theologians, kings, and nations, of supposedly Christian governments and of every established order in general, there is also the unwritten history of simple folk, who have lived and continue to live quiet lives, faithful to their Christian principles, even though world history has shown little concern for them. Many details about life in the past have also been preserved in the recorded lives of the saints, revealing another, largely unknown, history of Christianity, one that is a truer “history of the Church” than all the scandals and irregularities of ecclesiastical leaders. Indeed, the saints of the Church still remain the most authoritative representatives of Christianity, for they have made the best use of the inexhaustible spiritual resources and strength to be found in the Word and the Grace of God.

—Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos)
Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns (2003)