Some people think prayer stops bullets or rockets or land mines. It doesn't. That's magic, that's not God. Sometimes, you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.

Men didn't like to empty bedpans, so we made women nurses. Then men didn't like to do the administrative stuff, so women were allowed to become secretaries. That's the way they entered the work force. Then we began to educate them because they had to be educated. But it wasn't until after World War II that most of the great universities of this country became coeducational.

The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church.

I still hope. I wouldn't be in this position if I didn't. I love the church. I love the Bible. But I think we're in a time where we're desperately in need of a great reformation.

The thing that intrigues me about Matthew is that I don't believe anybody would read it if they aren't Jewish and understand it. And so to say that publicly as a Christian is kind of interesting.

The trouble is, the same thing that enabled us to survive evolution is also going to kill us, because in the final analysis, if survival is the primary motivation of every human being, then we will finally be in a situation where might will make right and only one person will survive.