We see God all the time here. People only hear bad things about our neighborhood. Kensington is known as the badlands. I always say you have to be careful when you call a place the badlands because that is exactly what they said about Nazareth. Nothing good can come from there. I think we see God in the margins.

The history of the church has been largely a history of "believers" refusing to believe in the way of the crucified Nazarene and instead giving in to the very temptations he resisted--power, relevancy, spectacle.

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).

When we really began executions rather than lynchings, black folks were 22% of our population in 1950, for instance, but they were 75% of the executions. Now, African-Americans are 13% of the population, but they're still almost half of death row, and over a third of the executions. 34% of the executions are black folks. So, like, I mean, things like the race of the victim is one of the biggest determinants of who gets executed.

In fact, the Gospel shows us change comes from the bottom rather than the top, from an old rugged cross rather than a gold royal throne.

People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.

The more I get to know Jesus, the more trouble he seems to get me into.