I think my parents were really smart parents. I think they were, actually, pretty progressive for the time. The one thing that they really wanted me to know is what makes me tick, what I am about, how I approach life. And I think what my parents really wanted for me was for me to be who I am.

Having grown up Protestant, I was unfamiliar with St. Francis. Then I watched the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon... I just became fascinated with the character of St. Francis. What I saw in that movie was a man who had fallen in love with God, someone for whom God was everything.

I think a lot of parents hand people over a blueprint and say, This is how youre supposed to do it. And my parents, I think, kind of drew a picture and said, Heres the good stuff in life. How do you get there?

It's a cultural disability in America that we worship pleasure, leisure, and affluence. I think the church is doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of that. Like, if you give a tithe, He'll make you rich. Why? Are you hacking Him off or something? If you give a tithe, you get rid of ten percent of the root of all evil. You should be giving ninety percent. Cause God can handle money better than we can.

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you've done it to me. And this is what I've come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they're just wrong. They're not bad, they're just wrong. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken-hearted.

You will never understand what you're doin'. But God does.

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.