Spiritual Quote of the Day (Robert A. Nisbet, on Secularism and ‘The Decline of Community’)

“The loss of the sense of the visible community of Christ will be followed by the loss of the sense of the invisible. The decline of community in the modern world has as its inevitable consequence the creation of a mass of helpless, bewildered individuals who are unable to find solace in Christianity regarded merely as a creed."—American sociologist Robert A. Nisbet (1913-1996), The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (1953)

Quote of the Day (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on God’s Love ‘Seeking to Preserve and Create Community’)

“Agape [i.e., God-originated love]  is not a weak, passive love.  It is love in action.  Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community…. The Holy Spirit is the continuing community creating reality that moves through history.  He who works against community is working against the whole of creation…. In the final analysis, agape means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated…. Whether we call it an unconscious process, an impersonal Brahman, or a Personal Being of matchless power and infinite love, there is a creative force in this universe that works to bring the disconnected aspects of reality into a harmonious whole.”— American civil-rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958)

(The image accompanying this post shows Dr. King receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.)