Indeed we are all in peril if the flawed messenger invalidates the message.

Whoever desires to remain faithful to Jesus must communicate faith as he did, not by compelling assent but by presenting it as a true answer to basic thirst. Rather than looking back nostalgically on a time when Christians wielded more power, I suggest another approach: that we regard ourselves as subversives operating within the broader culture.

The church is, above all, a place to receive grace: it brings forgiven people together with the aim of equipping us to dispense grace to others.

prayer, and only prayer, restores my vision to one that more resembles God's. i awake from blindness to see that wealth lurks as a terrible danger, not a goal worth striving for; that value depends not on race or status but on the image of God every person bears; that no amount of effort to improve physical beauty has much relevance for the world beyond.

I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will make sense only in reverse.

We respond to healing grace by giving it away.

And perhaps, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit may be our very best defense against a materialist view of mankind here on earth.