Do you have faith, or merely fear?

If our faith is primarily a mantra to drive away punishment, our faith isn’t really a faith, it is a fear. We feign faith in order to keep from being punished. We believe in an uncertain way only from fear of hell, and so our “faith” is without love and self-serving, a mere survival instinct. When we do that it usually manifests itself as a kind of harsh and brutal moralism. In this crippling system it is psychologically comforting to see ourselves as better than other people. Thus trying to hype up our ego leads us to a kind of moralism where we have to denigrate others in order to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Such self-centredness is a prime mark of the Fall. — Orthodox Archbishop Lazar Puhalo (featured in Hellbound?)