The Word we study has to be the Word we pray.

God is loving us - you and me - this moment, just as we are and not as we should be.

Authentic Christianity should lead to maturity, personality, and reality. It should fashion whole men and women living lives of love and communion

The confessing church of American Ragamuffins needs to join Magdalene and Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands.

Though it is true that the church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinner at a distance.

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior. Suddenly I discover that I am ministering to AIDS victims to enhance my resume. I find I renounced ice cream for Lent to lose five excess pounds... I have fallen victim to what T.S. Eliot calls the greatest sin: to do the right thing for the wrong reason.

Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works - but our lives refute our faith.