Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you don't want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
“The deeper truth is that reform, if it is real reform, is an exercise of love. Prophecy, if it is real prophecy, is an exercise of love. Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah employed such harsh language in criticizing the children of Israel precisely because they thought more of the people than the people thought of themselves. The prophets were in love… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share
In legal parlance, that is called 'the rational person test,' ... That's where somebody else says, 'Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a 'rational' person - meaning, myself - in that circumstance would want to die.' So you move very quickly from… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share
One would like to believe that people who think of themselves as devout Christians would also behave in a manner that is in according… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
If a church offers no truth that is not available in the general culture - in, for instance, the editorials of the New York… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
One must never underestimate the profound bigotry and anti-intellectualism and intolerance and illiberality of liberalism. — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
All my life I have prayed to God that I should remain religiously orthodox, culturally conservative, politically liberal and economically pragmatic. — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
“In recent decades, "pluralism" has become something of a buzzword. It is variously employed. Often it is used to argue that no normative ethic, even of the vaguest and most tentative sort, can be "imposed" in our public life. In practice this means that public policy decisions reflect a surrender of the normal to the abnormal, of the dominant to… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share
Consumerism is, quite precisely, the consuming of life by the things consumed. It is living in a manner that is measured by having rather than being... and consumerism is hardly the sin of the rich. The poor, driven by discontent and envy, may be as consumed by what they do not have as the rich are consumed by what they… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share
Whatever else the religious Right may be, it is a bonanza for its opponents... Reports of the great terror that is upon us are raising millions of dollars in fund appeals by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, Norman Lear's People for the American Way, and others who claim to believe that the religious… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share
The vicissitudes of history, however, have not dissuaded them from their earnest search for a "third way" between socialism and capitalism, namely socialism — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
“In other words, every party will be permitted to contend for their truths so long as they acknowledge that they are their truths, and… — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
Religion as a human phenomenon is as riddled through with potential for both good and evil as any other phenomenon. — Richard John Neuhaus Copy Share Image
