Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

At the heart of the gospel is a God who deliberately surrenders to the wild, irresistable power of love.

Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert. Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver's part, and some who heard Jesus' strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant.

Whatever makes us feel superior to other people, whatever tempts us to convey a sense of superiority, that is the gravity of our sinful nature, not grace.

Nature was one of the key forces that brought me back to God, for I wanted to know the Artist responsible for beauty such as I saw on grand scale in photos from space telescopes or on minute scale such as in the intricate designs on a butterfly wing.

We should be asking: How do we respond to a post-Christian society?