If there is no God or no evidence of God and certainly no evidence of a very morally engaged god, then whatever has to be done has to be done by us.

The nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.

The fact is that heterosexual sex for most people is in no way free of the power relations between men and women.

America is addicted to wars of distraction.

the seeker who embraces positive theology finds ... that you can have all that stuff in the mall, as well as the beautiful house and car, if only you believe that you can. But ... if you don't have all that you want, if you feel sick, discouraged, or defeated, you have only yourself to blame. Positive theology ratifies and completes a world without beauty, transcendence, or mercy.

Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their minds become dominated by that. They let their own emotions and expectations transform their perceptions of the world.

Both chronic, long-term poverty and downward mobility from the middle class are in the same category of things that America likes not to think about.