I don't make that decision [what next book will be] until I've read enough to know that I've got something different to say and I know how to say it.

Matthew is the only gospel that uses the Sermon on the Mount, for example, because that's the new Moses making a new interpretation of the law on a new mountain. So then you begin to put all these things together, and I don't know how you can make sense out of that book if you don't know the Jewish background.

It's not going to be a straight upward progression, but there's no doubt that consciousness is growing. Prejudices die regularly in the Western world. We don't burn witches anymore.

Edward Schillebeeckx is probably as fine a New Testament scholar as I've ever read. He's a Dutchman. And he was harassed so many times that it was just painful for him. He constantly had to go to Rome to explain his views.

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.

Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history.

If you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterday's terrorists become tomorrow's elected officials and they're part of the system.