For Christians do not place their hope in their children, but rather their children are a sign of their hope . . . that God has not abandoned this world.

Christians know that Christianity is simply extended training in dying early. That is what we have always been about.

Christianity is not a set of beliefs or doctrines one believes in order to be a Christian, but rather Christianity is to have one's body shaped, one's habits determined, in such a way that the worship of God is unavoidable.

I fear that much of the Christianity that surrounds us assumes our task is to save appearances by protecting God from Job-like anguish. But if God is the God of Jesus Christ, then God does not need our protection. What God demands is not protection, but truth.

The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.

Civil religion is the attempt to empower religion, not for the good of religion, but for the creation of the citizen.

I am a Congregationalist with Catholic sensibilities. Which probably explains how I ended up in a Episcopal church.