Jesus proclaimed, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. .. He is saying that a whole new order is about to enter history, and if you want to be a part of it, you will need a change so fundamental that the Gospel of John would later refer to it as a "new birth". Being born again was not meant to be a private religious experience that is hard to communicate. .. but rather the prerequisite for joining a new and very public movement - the Jesus and kingdom of God movement.

Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

The kingdom of God, which Jesus came to inaugurate, is meant to create an alternate reality in this world, and ultimately to transform the kingdoms of this world.

Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed.

I believe in the separation of church and state, absolutely. But I don't believe in the separation of public life from our values, our basic values, and for many of us, our religious values.

If you are asking the wrong question, it doesn't matter how good the answer is, you aren't going to get where you want to go.

At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. The mothers show us that it is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change.