In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.

Values are tapes we play on the Walkman of the mind: any tune we choose so long as it does not disturb others.

Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion's imminent demise.

In our interconnected world, we must learn to feel enlarged, not threatened, by difference - that is what I have argued.

When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends.

Religious ritual is a way of structuring time so that we, not employers, the market or the media, are in control. Life needs its pauses, its chapter breaks, if the soul is to have space to breathe.

The universe is more than mere matter in motion. It and we were brought into being by a Creator who seeks our good.