In the secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption.

While Christianity was able to agree with pagan writers that inordinate attachment to earthly goods can lead to unnecessary pain and grief, it also taught that the answer to this was not to love things less but to love God more than anything else. Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope.

Our need for worth is so powerful that whatever we base our identity and value on we essentially 'deify.' We will look to it with all the passion and intensity of worship and devotion, even if we think ourselves as highly irreligious.

Everyone says they want community and friendship. But mention accountability or commitment to people, and they run the other way.

Those who condemn the self-righteous for the sake of self-discovery do so with ironic self-righteousness.

Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon.

If Christianity is really true it will be offending and correcting you somewhere.