All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don't come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure.

We Christians should be aware that there's something at stake in cultural participation that we wouldn't have been concerned about if all we did was worry about the messages in culture.

I do emphasize that we cannot just get out of the Bible a definition of the soul.

If you have a group of people come together around a vision for real discipleship, people who are committed to grow, committed to change, committed to learn, then a spiritual assessment tool can work.

When the light comes into a room, we do not have to say, "Now what are we going to do about the darkness?" It's gone!

The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.

The core of the person is what he or she loves, and that is bound up with what they worship - that insight recalibrates the radar for cultural analysis. The rituals and practices that form our loves spill out well beyond the sanctuary. Many secular liturgies are trying to get us to love some other kingdom and some other gods.