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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The narratives of Scripture were not meant to describe our world ... but to change the world, including the one in which we now live.

No powers determine our lives more completely than those we think we have under our control. I