Sermons remain one of the last forms of public discourse where it is culturally forbidden to talk back.

We now live in a 'post-Christian' America . The Judeo-Christian ethic no longer guides our social institutions. Christian ideals and values no longer dominate social thought and action. The Bible has ceased to be a common base of moral authority for judging whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.

"Religion" can no more be equated with what goes on in churches than "education" can be reduced to what happens in schools or "health care" restricted to what doctors do to patients in clinics. The vast majority of healing and learning goes on among parents and children and families and friends, far from the portals of any school or hospital. The same is true for religion. It is going on around us all the time. Religion is larger and more pervasive than churches.

Instead of a 'Western Christianity,' we now witness a post-Christian West (in Europe) and a post-Western Christianity (in the global South). America is somewhere in between.

Your reach should always exceed your grasp.

Somewhere deep down we know that in the final analysis, we do decide things and that even our decisions to let someone else decide are really our decisions, however pusillanimous.

I am dead against trying to keep religious conservatives out of the political debate. The tactic of exclusion is self-defeating.