Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.

Fortunately, Paul is much more interesting than most of his interpreters, myself included.

A 'conservative believer' must be someone who believes that Jesus was truly human as well as truly divine.

I feel about John's gospel like I feel about my wife; I love her very much, but I wouldn't claim to understand her.

The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.

Jesus himself, as the gospel story goes on to its dramatic conclusion, lives out the same message of the Sermon on the Mount: he is the light of the world, he is the salt of the earth, he loves his enemies and gives his life for them, he is lifted up on a hill so that the world can see.

From where many of us in the U.K. sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn't see things in this horribly oversimplified way.