At the heart of Christian ethic is humility; at the heart of its parodies, pride. Different roads with different destinations, and the destinations color the character of those who travel by them.

One of the things I find depressing about some of the upper echelons of Anglicanism on both sides of the Atlantic is that it's sort of taken for granted that we all basically know what's in the Bible, and so we just glance at a few verses for devotional purposes and then get on to the real business.

Part of the problem about authenticity is that virtues aren't the only things that are habit forming: the more someone behaves in a way that is damaging to self or to others, the more "natural" it will both seem and actually be. Spontaneity, left to itself, can begin by excusing bad behavior and end by congratulating vice.

I'm a people person. I like being with people. So I like being a teacher, and so on.

We have to train ourselves to use words accurately. And there's so much loose Christian talk, for which I've no doubt been as guilty as any.

It's partly that I'm an extrovert and that I like being with people. If you shut me up in a library with nothing else around for weeks on end, I'd go mad! I have to sort of go out.

Certainly Paul shares the view of the Old Testament prophets that God will one day flood the world with justice and joy - and that this has begun to be fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus.