When it comes to the big issues like immigration, everyone has a role. The government has a role. The church has a role. Every Christian has a role.

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

You can't really learn God's hope like you learn the logic of an argument or the details of a story. It's more like learning to belly laugh. You catch hope from someone who has it down in their gut.

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.

Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet.

With the early Christians you couldn't have God as your father unless you have the church as your mother. This isn't accepting the church as a perfect thing.

Whenever folks say radical Christianity is "a phase" of youth, I tell them they need to meet our 80-year-old nun or my friend Tony Campolo.