Recognizing that something is wrong is the first step toward changing the world.

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.

One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn't a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future.

The Christian icon is not the Stars and Stripes but a cross-flag, and its emblem is not a donkey, an elephant, or an eagle, but a slaughtered lamb.

Discontentment is a gift. It's the stuff that changes the world.

It's impossible to separate our contemporary practice of the death penalty from our history around race and slavery, and specifically, lynching. Where lynchings were happening 100 years ago is where executions are happening today. And that's a haunting and eerie thing.

We say it is idealistic to think we can continue to live the way we live - with 5% of the world using half the world's resources, with $20,000 a second being spent on war.