... the issue is not whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I profoundly disagree. We Christians are called to use the "weapons of grace," which means treating even our opponents with love and respect.

No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.

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

I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God's family.

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

Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. Prayer includes moments of ecstasy and also dullness, mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation. In other words, prayer has features in common with all relationships that matter.

If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus’ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.