There is an "offense" to the Gospel no matter how graciously we present it. It includes the message that God, not humanity, is the ultimate judge of right and wrong, and that the choices we make here have eternal consequences.

Individuals and societies are not helpless victims of heredity. We have the power to change - not by looking "down" to nature but "up" to God, who consistently calls us forward to become the people we were designed to be. A confused world urgently needs a model of what that looks like. If Christians fail to provide that model, who will?

Some of us seem so anxious about avoiding hell that we forget to celebrate our journey toward heaven.

Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.

Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism.

God formed an alliance based on the world as it is, full of flaws, whereas prayer calls God to account for the world as it should be.

Love deems this world worth rescuing.