Sunday, Reflections

The Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the children of God; the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth, sinners? It is a sin to call a man a sinner. It is a standing libel on human nature.
— Swami Vivekananda, before the Parliament of Religions, — Chicago, 1893

(Well there you go, one way or another, I'm a desperate sinner in need of a Savior.)

ALL OTHER FORMS OF RELIGION—not to mention philosophy—deal with the problem of guilt apart from the intervention of God, and therefore they come to a ‘cheap’ conclusion. In them human beings are spared the final humiliation of knowing that the mediator must bear the punishment instead of us. To this yoke he need not submit. He is not stripped absolutely naked.
— Emil Brunner

(Both quotes from Redeemer Presbyterian Church bulletin, March 22, 2009)