From the perspective of the one committing suicide, his or her act can be one of the most perverse forms of moral manipulation, as it abandons those left behind to their shame, guilt, and grief. Suicide is something like a metaphysical "I gotcha!" It is often an attempt to kill or wound others.

Another hallmark of Christianity is that salvation is not individualistic-it's not something one person receives for himself or herself. Salvation is the reign of God. It is a political alternative to the way the world is constituted. That's a very important part of the story that has been lost to accounts of salvation that are centered in the individual. But without an understanding that salvation is the reign of God, the need for the church to mediate salvation makes no sense at all.

To be poor does not mean you lack the means to extend charity to another. You may lack money or food, but you have the gift of friendship to overwhelm the loneliness that grips the lives of so many.

I am often criticized, or at least questions are raised, about what appears to be the absence of the Holy Spirit in my work.

The church is constituted as a new people who have been gathered from the nations to remind the world that we are in fact one people. Gathering, therefore, is an eschatological act as it is the foretaste of the unity of the communion of the saints.

Our hope in life beyond death is a hope made possible, not by some general sentimental belief in life after death, but by our participation in the life of Christ.

Gentleness is given to those who have learned that God will not have his kingdom triumph through the violence of the world, for such a triumph came through the meekness of a cross.