The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.  If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.  God became Man for no other purpose.  It is even doubtful...whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

What we call the virtues are precisely those attributes of character that best suit us to live harmoniously, even joyfully, in society.  Kindness only exists when there is someone to whom we show kindness.  Patience is only manifest when another calls it forth. So it is with mercy, generosity, and self-control.  What we may have thought was our private pathway to salvation, was intended all along as a collaborative enterprise, though we often miss the point.  The confusion is understandable, since our current generation's preference for "spirituality" over "religion" is often a sleight of hand that confuses true discipleship with self-absorption.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 112-113

We humans have a lamentable tendency to spend more time theorizing the reasons behind human suffering, than working to alleviate human suffering, and in imagining a heaven above, than creating a heaven in our homes and communities.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 111-112

As long as it is God's nature and character we are striving to emulate, and not His power and glory, we are on safe ground.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 105

God would not have commanded us to forgive each other seventy times seven, if He were not prepared to extend to us the same mathematical generosity.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 100

The work of love in remembering one who is dead is a work of the utmost unselfish love...If one wants to make sure that love is completely unselfish, he eliminates every possibility of repayment.  but precisely this is eliminated in the relationship to one who is dead.  If love nevertheless remains, it is in truth unselfish.

- Soren Kierkegaard

Quoted in Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 98

If the whole mission of Christ and His atonement is to enable change, to render repentance and personal transformation possible, to empower and sanctify, then what are we to say about the billions who have lived in obliviousness to such power and grace?  The question is not how can they be rescued from damnation, but how can the be elevated or ennobled, given their inability to participate in all that His grace makes possible?

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 95

Two Obstacles to spiritual growth that are often reflected in Mormon mantras:

1.  SUPERSTITION.  Mormon's aren't superstitious.  We are modern and sophisticated; we don't dance in circles or chant incantations. Or do we?  If someone uses words or actions to influence God to do what they want, I believe that is superstition.  Prayer and ordinances were designed to put us in harmony with God so we can be spiritually nourished.  They are not designed to turn God into a cosmic vending machine.  Acts of service are designed to benefit others, not to motivate God to be nicer to us.  Keeping commandments should be acts of faith and love, but too often they seem to be approached as ways to get "blessed" (which, in our minds, usually means getting what we want or avoiding what we don't want).

2.  "BAD" RELIGION.  Bad religion occurs when the ordinances and practices become ends in themselves rather than support for spiritual growth.  I've seen couples extend themselves to become worthy to get "married int he temple" only to return to past problem behaviors afterwards.  They somehow thought the ordinance itself would be transforming and give them power over sinful attitudes and behavior.  In counseling, several Latter-day Saints have said to me: "I keep the Word of Wisdom, pay my tithing, and serve faithfully in my calling.  Why is my marriage failing?"  Or "Elder _____ said in conference that if we attended the temple regularly, our marriage would be successful!"  My response is usually something like, "I'm glad you are doing all this good, church-related stuff,  but until you learn how to be patient, kind, affectionate, and emotionally honest, your marriage is going to be a mess."  There is no doubt that LDS practices and ordinances can help us acquire these qualities but only if they are seen as supports and not ends.

-Philip McLemore, "Mormon Mantras", Sunstone, April 2006

While suffering may indeed be a soul-making process (some psychological research indicates this to be true), it is not inflicted for this “greater good.” Perhaps it is not that God allows our hearts to broken, but, in many cases, He simply cannot prevent it. But because of the love He has and the at-one-ment He seeks with us, His own heart is broken and yearns to heal both ours and His. Atonement is about unity, unity is about love, and love is about vulnerability.

Walker Wright, Mourn With Those Who Mourn: The Weeping God and Me

[A]s soon as it is recognized, as in modern revelation it is, that there is more than one eternal will in the universe--indeed, an infinity of such wills or autonomous intelligences--we have cut the thread that supposes God can “do anything.” In all-important ways even He, the greatest of all, can only do with us what we will permit Him to do. Our center selves can agree or disagree, assent or resent, cooperate or oppose. To say, as the scriptures do, that God has all power and that He is almighty and that with Him all things are possible is to say that He has all the power and might it is possible to have in this universe of multiple selves. And as soon as it is recognized, as in modern revelation it is, that there are eternal inanimate things which are subject to laws, to “bounds and conditions” which God did not create but Himself has mastered, we have cut another thread of illusory omnipotence…[God] can do only what our wills and eternal laws will permit. In short, He did not make us from nothing and what He makes of us depends on us and the ultimate nature of a co-eternal universe.

Truman G. Madsen, "Human Anguish and Divine Love," Four Essays on Love, 57-58

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes