You are free to love without an agenda William P. Young More Quotes by William P. Young More Quotes From William P. Young My dad was a preacher. My relationship, for example, with my father -- very difficult, and very painful, and it took me 50 years to wipe the face of my father off the face of God. William P. Young dad father years You are the root, and only God knows that the flower will be. William P. Young god-knows flower roots I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids. William P. Young growing-up plato father Jesus was always challenging the dogma of religion. So, you know, it's not like I'm out there by myself. William P. Young dogma challenges jesus I grew up fundamentalist, evangelical, Protestant. Those are my roots, and they are good roots. But it means the Pharisees are my people. I grew up with an image of God that was not helpful -- largely the face of my father expanded. William P. Young roots mean father I make a distinction between true and real. I think that the story is true, it’s just not real. That’s what a parable is. It takes things that we all know are real, and it takes life events that actually happens, and it weaves them into a fiction that allows truth to actually be embedded. William P. Young real fiction thinking I think my books give people a language to have a conversation about God that's not religious. There isn't enough new literature that brings the conversation of God into a modern context. I love the Bible, but in the West we've analyzed it until it fits into a structure of control. We need more new stories. We need different ways of looking at things, and I think it's coming. William P. Young religious book thinking It wasn't long ago I was cleaning toilets and now I have protestors. How cool is this? William P. Young long-ago toilets long I want to tell you about the God that actually showed up and healed my heart. Not the God I grew up, because the God I grew up was fundamentally, and I use the word advisedly, fundamentally untrustworthy -- schizophrenic, narcissistic, unreachable, unknowable, and my concept within which I grew up was that Jesus -- He likes me -- but He came to save me from God the Father -- who was the one who was angry and distant, and unreachable, unknowable. All of that had to come crashing down. William P. Young heart father jesus It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn't even real... William P. Young real impossible Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. William P. Young shack punishment sin You do understand," she continued, "that unless I had an object to love -- or, more accurately, a someone to love -- if I did not have such a relationship within myself, then I would not be capable of love at all? You would have a god who could not love. Or maybe worse, you would have a god who, when he chose, could love only as a limitation of his nature. William P. Young objects capable ifs
