The life function of [the local church] is to love the God who created it - to care for others out of obedience to Christ, to heal those who hurt, to take away fear, to restore community, to belong to one another, to proclaim the Good News while living it out. The church is the invisible made visible.

I'd walk over my own grandmother to re-elect Richard Nixon.

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena.

The church has been brought into the same value system as the world: fame, success, materialism and celebrity. We watch the leading churches and the leading Christians for our cues. We want to emulate the best known preachers with the biggest sanctuaries and the grandest edifices. Preoccupation with these values has perverted the church's message.

It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.

Today's marginalization of Christianity is a direct result of our failure to understand our faith as a total worldview.

The Bible has, amazingly- no doubt with supernatural grace-survived its critics. The harder tyrants try to eliminate it and skeptics dismiss it, the better read it becomes.