A biography for Lionel Bluehasn’t been written yet.
“During the Second World War, evacuated to non-Jewish households, I encountered Christianity at home and in school.”
“The Christian use of religion as a personal love affair both shocked me, and attracted me.”
“So many plusses, so many minuses.”
“Discrimination against Jews can be read in Thomas Aquinas, and insults against Jews in Martin Luther.”
“Christianity had two faces which bewildered me - two pictures which didn't fit.”
“Because of my Marxism, I was not into myths or miracles, whether it was the virgin birth, the physical resurrection or casting out demons from an epileptic.”
“What would I have done if I'd been put to the test? Would I have risked my own life for people I hardly knew? Probably, I would have looked the other way at best or become another apologist for evil at worst.”
“To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn't wish my teens and 20s on my enemies.”
“Old friends die on you, and they're irreplaceable. You become dependent.”
“I thought of such Christian inventions as the ghetto and the Jewish badge of shame. The Nazis didn't have to go very far to pick up their know-how.”
“To change, to convert? Why bother?”
“I was not comfortable worshipping another Jew.”
“I was not allowed a physical lover. Falling in love with Love was the best I could get.”
“The real evidence for Jesus and Christianity is in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practicing Christians.”
“I literally fell among Quakers when I went up to Oxford.”
“On the way to work good-hearted young girls sometimes offer me their seats, which I accept and bless them in return, a transaction satisfying to all concerned.”
“I have ended as a Reform Rabbi, grateful to Christianity for so many good things.”
“The real evidence is not practically speaking in scholarship but in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practising Christians. Their lives are the proofs of their beliefs.”
“In speaking of Jesus, I must speak about Christianity because I do not think it possible or profitable to divide the two.”
“Good things come, and I'm not just referring to riding the buses.”