The Church and Cultures: New Perspectives In Missiological Anthropology, Louis J. Luzbetak

"What one learns in early life tends to persist more than what is learned in later life. Certain sexual tendencies, speech habits, gestures and facial expressions, fear of black magic and wicked spirits, and fondness for certain foods--all of which are associated with early learning--are among the most difficult of habits to change. Voodoo persists for a variety of reasons, not least of all because it is associated with early life experiences. Health programs meet stiff opposition when new dietary habits are suggested because they go counter to the pleasant and satisfying childhood experiences associated with eating."

-from The Church and Cultures: New Perspectives in Missiological Anthropology, Louis J. Luzbetak.

Castrating Culture, Dewi Hughes

"As stated above, modernists expect ethnic diversity to diminish as nation states get bigger and bigger. The ultimate ideal is one universal nation state where everyone can enjoy the freedom to create and consume. It is at this point that the idea of humanity will be finally realized. This echo of Babel is a frightening thought in a world where human beings are not very good at handling power."

-from Castrating Culture, Dewi Hughes

(If anyone has a website for this author, please share in the comments. Supposedly he's the theological advisor to Tearfund, but I can't find hide or hair of him on their site. Oh well...)

Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

"Large numbers of young people, raised in rigidly structured and industrially oriented cultures, violently reject industrialism and seek instead some modified version of the agricultural lifestyle that their forebears(debatably) enjoyed, including extended communal families and in some instances a barter economy in miniature. Children starve while boots costing many thousands of dollars leave their mark upon the surface of the moon. We have labored long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.

~from Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Phillip Jenkins

"Christianity has never been synonymous with either Europe or the West."

~from The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Phillip Jenkins

Good Hair, Benilde Little

"'First of all,' she said with her back to me and sounding like God, 'you are not havin' a breakdown. We don't break down. We may make other people do that, but we don't, so you cannot have one. That woman I worked for, she has breakdowns, which is why she calls me every damn day, 'cause she can't figure out nothin' for herself and she's been given everything her whole life. You, my little girlfriend, come from folks so damn strong-willed that they had to leave the South or White folks was just gon' be forced to kill 'em. You couldn't have no will like that and be a Black man in the South, you understand that. Now, I don't know all of what's bothering you, I do know you can figure out how to get what you want from that paper, and if they can't give it to you, then you go look for somethin' else, and when you find it, then you leave, but you don't just git up and go without someplace else to go.'"

~from Good Hair, Benilde Little

A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

"It's a no-win argument--that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth." ~A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

Beyond The Shadows, Brent Weeks

"'Shit,' Kylar said. 'How come everyone I know is smarter than me? Whatever it is, I see the unclean. I want to know if that implies that I have a duty to do something about what I see.'"

~~Beyond the Shadows, Brent Weeks

The Haunting of Hip-Hop, Bertice Berry

It would take Freedom his entire life to realize that too often childhood wishes become the motivation for the misbehavior of adults.
~The Haunting of Hip Hop, Bertice Berry

please don't come back from the moon, Dean Bakopoulos

When I was sixteen, my father went to the moon.  He was not the first man from Maple Rock to go there; he only followed the others on what seemed to be an inevitable trail.
~please don't come back from the moon, Dean Bakopoulos.

The End of Poverty, Jeffrey D. Sachs

"Alas, the international community's approach remains incoherent in practice. On the one side, it announces bold goals, like the Millennium Development Goals, and even ways that the goals can be achieved, such as the pledge of increased donor assistance made in the Monterrey Consensus. Yet when it comes to real practice, where the rubber hits the road, in the poverty reduction plans, the Millennium Development Goals are expressed only as vague aspirations rather than operational targets. Countries are told to go about their business without any hope of meeting the MDGs. The IMF and World Bank reveal split personalities, championind the MDGs in public speeches, approving programs that will not achieve them, and privately acknowledging, with business as usual, that they cannot be met!"
~The End of Poverty, Jeffrey D. Sachs

Paula Danziger, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit

I didn't know how to tell him that it was awful. "Listen Joel. Are you sure your mother will like it?"
Looking at me, he smiled and said, "She'll hate it. Don't you see? She'll just hate it. It's perfect. She'll never figure out if I know how ugly it is or if I think it's beautiful. When she comes to see me or if I have to go there, she'll have to wear it. It'll look awful. And when I show it to my grandmother before I send it, she'll never know either. Those two don't realize a guy can have good taste."
~The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, Paula Danziger

Maynard and Jennica, Rudolph Delson

It started with sexlessness, and with the Friday New York Times.

~~"Maynard And Jennica", Rudolph Delson

Quote of the Whenever: The Poisonwood Bible

"This was the sticking point in my own little lame march to salvation: admission to heaven is gained by the luck of the draw. At age five I raised my good left hand in Sunday school and used a month's ration of words to point this problem out to Miss Betty Nagy. Getting born within earshot of a preacher, I reasoned, is entirely up to chance. Would Our Lord be such a hit-or-miss kind of Saviour as that? Would he realy condemn some children to eternal suffering just for the accident of a heathen birth, and reward others for a privilege they did nothing to earn?"
--Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Love Wins, Rob Bell

"Really?
Ghandi's in hell?
He is?
We have confirmation of this?"

--Rob Bell, Love Wins