SUFFERING

'I don't believe in The Problem of Pain as people discuss it in religion classes. At that level there is no problem, only a debate toy. The problem of pain I believe in is the pain that happens to one person at a time. Pain is a much more serious problem when it is reduced to proper, personal size. God did not send an earthquake to Guatemala; rather, Pedro, who lives there, lost his wife in an earthquake and seeks the purpose of God in the event.'

Thomas E. Scmidt, Straight or Narrow?, p.176.

SEXUALITY

'It is only an abberation of our own sorry generation to equate the absence of sexual gratification with the absence of full personhood, the denial of being or the deprivation of joy.'

Thomas E. Schmidt, Staright or Narrow?, p. 168.

HOSPITALITY

'The call is clear. If we are to walk in the way of Jesus, it is not the nuclear family that we need to promote but the hospitable family. We do not need people who love family values nearly as much as we need families who value love for people.'

Thomas E. Schmidt, Striaght & Narrow?, p.170.

SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

'For most of us, moral survival is like crossing a choppy sea in an overturned boat. Get a little sleepy, or get a little reckless in your hold, and suddenly the boat and you are bobbing apart in cold, dark water. So you desperately scramble back, trusting that somehow, eventually, this boat will get you to land.

People who picture themselves as soggy sailors clinging to overturned boats are not apt to treat their fellow flotsam with contempt. Likewise the proclamation of Christian morality has no place for a righteous majority who scorn those who will not play by the rules. What is needed are unrighteous people who recognize the universal need to receive God's mercy and power for obedience, whatever's one particular distortion of God's intent for sexuality. The log must come out of the eye.'

Thomas E. Schmidt, Straight & Narrow?, p.55.