When I look back at the Christian faith, I see that we have had to retranslate, almost reinvent ourselves a number of times.

There never was a time when we were created perfect and fell into sin and needed to be rescued. We are evolving people; we are not fallen people. We are not a little lower than the angels. We're a little higher than the apes. It's a very different perspective.

Prayer is not adult letters written to Santa Claus, and God is not some parent-like figure up in the sky who's going to take care of us.

I've never known about anyone being helped by being told how wretched, miserable, sinful, and evil they are.

The way you become divine is to become wholly human

It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish.

Toward the end of his life, [Arnold] Toynby said the Christianity he saw developing was brittle, imperialistic and incapable of reforming itself.