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 think Jesus is a fact of history. I think a man named Jesus of Nazareth lived and was crucified. I think his death interpreted his life in a fantastic way, because if you study that life carefully underneath an overlay of theology and mythology, you'll find that the power of that life was that he was constantly giving himself away. He was constantly calling people to be all that they could be.

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

I can only give away the love that I have received.

We were born in a Jewish world, as part of a Jewish faith tradition. We had to translate ourselves into the neo-Platonic thinking Greek world; that took us about 400 years. Then, finally a man named Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, recast Christianity in terms of neo-Platonic thought.

My hope is that a religious consciousness will begin to rise, one based on enhancing humanity, grasping life in all of its complex wonder, having the courage to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that each of us can be and that it will express itself in our national life in more earth centered, justice enhancing and humane ways.

The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught.