We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else's opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.

The world is awful but also the world is beautiful. Human beings are awful, but ultimately human beings are tremendous.

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it

There are very good Christians who are compassionate and caring. And there are very bad Christians. You can say that about Islam, about Hinduism, about any faith. That is why I was saying that it was not the faith per se but the adherent. People will use their religion to justify virtually anything.

Retributive justice is one that says clobber him or clobber her because they clobbered me. So it emphasizes punishment.

Freedom is indivisible. Whites can't enjoy their separate freedoms. They spend too much time and resources defending those freedoms instead of enjoying them.

You can find justification for slavery in the Bible. Some say this is what the Bible says and that closes the argument.