Latest Tim DeChristopher Quotes from Interviews

• Our security doesn't come from turning away from the hard stuff; it comes from the knowledge that we can handle it.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Stuff, Handle, Hard

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• If we're constantly suppressing our strong, heavy emotions - like fear and anger and outrage and sadness - it weakens us. But when we're not afraid to confront the hard emotions - when we don't turn away from the pain and the suffering of the world - it builds the confidence that we can do whatever we need to do.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Strong, Pain, Sadness

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Dealing with our negative emotions is a crucial preparatory step to taking effective action. You have to grapple with the hard stuff, with the hard realities of the world. This builds your confidence that you can handle those intense situations when they arise.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Reality, Negative, World

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Going through intense change with an ignorant and apathetic citizenry, driven by a corporate agenda, is a really, really scary proposition. But going into it with an educated and empowered citizenry that feels it can determine the course of its society and can hold its corporations and governments accountable has a lot of power and potential to it. To me, that's what makes activism so important.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Government, Scary, Ignorant

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Part of the reason I embrace nonviolence is that it's the most effective thing we can do. It's a more advanced tactic than violence. If people who engage in violence want to escalate their tactics, they would escalate to nonviolence.

  Tim DeChristopher

  People, Tactics, Want

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Being forcefully rattled out of our consumer mentality - our addiction to comfort and convenience can create an opportunity for us [people] to reconnect with what we really value and with the qualities of life that really can sustain us - which include reconnecting with our roles as citizens, community members, and human beings.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Opportunity, People, Addiction

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• It's really hard to change the world when your first priority is making sure that the little world around yourself doesn't change.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Priorities, World, Littles

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Respond to stressful times by turning towards each other, rather than away from each other.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Stressful, Away From Each Other, Stressful Times

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Excess consumption doesn't make people happy. We can continue to provide for our needs, but we can't continue the endless pursuit of ever more consumer goods. There is no energy source that can provide enough consumer goods to meet our human and emotional needs; there never has been, and that's why it's been such a fruitless pursuit.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Emotional, People, Energy

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• That's why there is such alienation, depression, and despair in our society - because the means we're employing doesn't lead to the ends we desire, no matter how hard we work, nor how much "stuff" we accumulate.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Mean, Despair, Desire

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• We need to reject not only outdated fossil-fuel technology, but also an outdated economic system and an outdated corporatist political system. The progressive view is that we are smart enough and ethical enough to not have to be subservient to corporations. We can create our own resilient, localized communities.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Smart, Technology, Views

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• I don't think a worship of nature is necessary to mount a really strong defense of the environment.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Strong, Thinking, Defense

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• My values are primarily motivated by love for other people. I value the non-human world in large part because it's so vital to human beings. Even my appreciation for wilderness grows out of an understanding of how important wilderness can be for people.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Appreciation, People, Understanding

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Religious communities have historically been designed to counteract the forces of alienation. That's why so many successful social movements have relied upon the strength of spiritual communities and a large base of their organizing has been through them.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Spiritual, Religious, Successful

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• Spirituality has to play an important role, particularly in resistance movements. The institutions we are fighting against - corporations and governments - use alienation as one of their primary weapons. A big part of their messaging is intended to make people feel separated from each other, which disempowers them, which makes them ever easier to exploit. This is really a spiritual weapon they are using. It isolates people and breaks their spirit.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Spiritual, Fighting, Government

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• I don't read the Bible as the literal word of God; I don't view Jesus as a God. I've rejected both those statements. I view Jesus as a model for how we should live, and by that definition I do consider myself a Christian.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Christian, Jesus, Views

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• It wasn't until I started reading the history of religion that I understood that the definition of Christianity has shifted in many different directions over time, and the mainstream view today certainly doesn't have any exclusive ownership of what being a Christian means. Realizing that freed me to use the terminology without needing to be tied down to it.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Christian, Reading, Mean

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• My spiritual path has largely been Christianity - a label that I embraced and then rejected and have partially embraced again, as my understanding of Christianity has changed over time. When I accepted the mainstream, dogmatic definition of Christianity there came a point when I had to say, "Well, if that's what a Christian is, I'm not one."

  Tim DeChristopher

  Christian, Spiritual, Understanding

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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