The Hebrew scriptures say it's okay to enslave anybody except your fellow Jews. It says you should enslave only your neighbors. I say to people that means Mexicans and Canadians are a bit at risk if we want to be literal about the Bible.

The primary message of the Christian Church is that we were born in sin and we need to be rescued; we cannot rescue ourselves, so God comes to our rescue, pays the price of our sin and transforms us through the death of Jesus.

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 want the traditional family upheld, but I don't want it upheld to the detriment of other people.

The right to a good death is a basic human freedom. The [2006-JAN] Supreme Court's decision to uphold aid in dying allows us to view and act on death as a dignified moral and godly choice for those suffering with terminal illnesses.

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.

The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world.