Scripture is, at its heart, the great story that we sing in order not just to learn it with our heads but to become part of it through and through, the story that in turn becomes part of us.

By all means write new songs. Each generation must do that. But to neglect the church's original hymnbook is, to put it bluntly, crazy

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.

Many Christians in the evangelical tradition use words like "conversion," "regeneration," "justification," "born-again," etc. all as more or less synonyms to mean "becoming a Christian from cold." In the classic Reformed tradition, the word "justification" is much more fine-tuned than that and has to do with a verdict which is pronounced, rather than with something happening to you in terms of actually being born again. So that I'm actually much closer to some classic Reformed writing on this than some people perhaps realize.

I have always taken the view that sometimes war may be justified, as police action can be justified, to protect the weak and vulnerable (a major preoccupation in scripture). But this is an old and difficult question and very wise people take different views.

When you're writing theology, you have to say everything all the time, otherwise people think you've deliberately missed something out.

Whenever you see, in an official lectionary, the command to omit two or three verses, you can normally be sure that they contain words of judgment. Unless, of course, they are about sex.