Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the poor rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said.

When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way.

When we put too much hope in a candidate or a party we set ourselves up for disappointment. When I see a poster with [Barak] Obama's image with the word "hope" under it, something in me cringes - our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, the old hymn goes, all other ground is sinking sand.

Somehow Jesus's reputation has survived all the embarrassing things that Christians have done in his name.

I say let's be idealists. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not yet see" (Hebrews 11:1).

We should refuse to get sucked into political camps and insist on pulling the best out of all of them. That's what Jesus did - challenge the worst of each camp and pull out the best of each.

To be nonpartisan doesn't mean we're nonpolitical.