When people with power see things happen of which they disapprove, they drop bombs and send in tanks. When people without power see things happen of which they disapprove, they smash store windows, blow themselves up in crowded places, and fly planes into buildings. The fact that both methods have proved remarkably unsuccessful at changing things doesn't stop people from going on in the same way.

For me, actually, being a bishop in a bishopric where there's an academic tradition gives me this fascinating, challenging, but open invitation to say, "We want you to be a scholar. We want you to go on doing this. But do it as a bishop!"

People often get upset when you teach them what is in the Bible rather than what they presume is in the Bible.

The Biblical vision is not so much concerned with life after death but about life after life after death.

To pray 'your kingdom come' at Jesus' bidding meant to align oneself with his kingdom movement.

Christian living means dying with Christ and rising again. That, as we saw, is part of the meaning of baptism, the starting point of the Christian pilgrimage.

What we have at the moment isn't as the old liturgies used to say, 'the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead,' but a vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end.