I would rather commit a sin of commission than a sin of omission, and the evangelical community is exactly the opposite. The evangelical community would rather not do something wrong and the price they're willing to pay for not doing something wrong is they're willing to fail to do something right; they're so afraid of making a mistake. Now the reason they're afraid of making a mistake is they're cowards and our community produces cowards.

If we are going to be wise, spiritual people prepared to meet the crises of our age, we must be a studying, learning community that values the life of the mind

If you were to force people to do something against their free choice, you would be dehumanizing them. The option of forcing everyone to go to heaven is immoral, because it's dehumanizing; it strips them of the dignity of making their own decision; it denies them their freedom of choice; and it treats them as a means to an end. When God allows people to say 'no' to him, he actually respects and dignifies them.

In Scripture, faith involves placing trust in what you have reason to believe is true. Faith is not a blind, irrational leap into the dark. So faith and reason cooperate on a biblical view of faith. They are not intrinsically hostile.

The proper thing to do is to admit that hell is real and to allow our feelings of discomfort to motivate us to action.

From space travel to organ transplants, one of the most important influences shaping the modern world is science. Amazingly, people who lived during the Civil War had more in common with Abraham than with us. If Christians are going to speak to that world and interact with it responsibly, they must interact with science.

Real life does not come naturally. It is counterintuitive. It is a skill we have to learn. That's because the way to real life is not something we get, but something we give.