Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.

There is extreme poverty in Appalachia, where I was, and increasingly poverty is not just an urban thing.

A pastor friend of mine said, "Our problem is that we no longer have martyrs. We only have celebrities.

I engage with local politics because it affects people I love. And I engage in national politics because it affects people I love.

We think of justice sometimes as getting what you deserve, you know  -  what crime was committed and what is the punishment for that crime. That's how a lot of the criminal justice works. But God's justice is restorative, so it's not as interested in those same questions of "What did they do wrong?" and "What is the punishment for that?" It's more about what harm was done and how do we heal that harm, and that's a much more redemptive version. So, it definitely doesn't turn a blind eye to harm, but it does say we want to heal the wounds of that.

We can also cling to the treasures of our faith and get rid of the things that are cluttering that. It is a time we are seeing some trending away from the things that were cluttering our faith.

We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.