I think in the end, God's justice is redemptive, it's restorative, it's about giving life, not taking life.

I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me.

The more you look at the death penalty, that's where you see that we're actually not killing the worst of the worst. We're killing the poorest of the poor. Where actually one of the biggest determinants of who gets executed is how many resources they have to defend themselves.

We need to be politically engaged, but peculiar in how we engage. Jesus and the early Christians had a marvelous political imagination. They turned all the presumptions and ideas of power and blessing upside down.

The problem is that the Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul stuff may feel good, but none of that typical stuff helps when somebody in your neighborhood is murdered.

The death penalty has succeeded in America, not in spite of Christians, but because of us. The Bible Belt is the Death Belt. Wherever Christians are most concentrated is where executions are happening, and that's deeply troubling to me.

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians.