There is no religion in fact that I know that encourages or propagates violence in that its adherents should carry out.

Religious people should be very active if they believe that the world belongs to God, and politics is a very important part of the world, then they must participate in political affairs because they are alive. And if they don't act neither as the leaven or the salt or the light, then things can go horribly badly wrong.

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

I wish that we did have a magic wand which we could wave and hey presto! Magic! Unfortunately life is not like that.

God places us in the world as his fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God's world.

It's a fantastic thing that from moment to the next moment if God were to have stopped for a split second we would disintegrate into nothingness. And the incredible thing is that God breaths this breath and keeps each of us in existence, in being, even when we chose to reject God. Now if I had that kind of power I would snuff you out! But God doesn't.

Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.