... why are so many religious people arguing about the origin of the species but so few concerned about the extinction of the species?

When any sector of the Church stops learning, God simply overflows the structures that are in the way and works outside them with those willing to learn.

...the tragedy of consumerism: one acquires more and more things without taking the time to ever see and know them, and thus one never truly enjoys them. One has without truly having. The consumer is right-there is pleasure to be had in good things, a sacred and almost unspeakable pleasure, but the consumer wrongly thinks that one finds this pleasure by having more and more possessions instead of possessing them more truly through grateful contemplation. And here we are, living in an economy that perpetuates this tragedy.

It's not about the church meeting your needs; it's about joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs.

This is why I believe that many of our current eschatologies, intoxicated by dubious interpretations of John’s Apocalypse are not only ignorant and wrong, but dangerous and immoral.

Tony [Campolo] and I might disagree on the details, but I think we are both trying to find an alternative to both traditional Universalism and the narrow, exclusivist understanding of hell [that unless you explicitly accept and follow Jesus, you are excluded from eternal life with God and destined for hell].

I was relaxing in my parents' swimming pool with my brother, Peter. I asked him how the engineering business was going, and he reciprocated: 'How's the ministry world going?' 'Okay,' I said, 'except that a couple of weeks ago I realized that I don't know why Jesus had to die.' Then Peter, without skipping a beat, without even a moment's hesitation, said, 'Well, neither did Jesus.'