I have serious problems with fundamentalist Christians and their creationist theories. Although I believe that scripture is divinely inspired and infallible, I have a hard time going along with the belief that the whole creation process occurred in six twenty-four hour days. My skepticism is due, in part, to the fact that the Bible says that the sun wasn’t created until the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:16-19). I have a hard time figuring how twenty-four hour days could have been measured before that.

Religion, for better or for worse, has been politicized in blatant ways that have seldom been equaled in American elections.

Whenever there is a catastrophe, some religious people inevitably ask, 'Why didn't God do something? Where was God when all those people died?'

We don't have to give up trying to convert each other. What we have to do is show respect to one another. And to speak to each other with a sense that even if people don't convert, they are God's people, God loves them, and we do not make the judgment of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.

The real problem that I think those of us who are evangelicals and Democrats have to face up to is that the political right controls the religious media.

So I really would like to see both parties respond to the poor with greater commitment. But I've got to tell you, the Democrats, I feel, are doing a better job in that respect than Republicans are.

Freud taught us that it wasn't God that imposed judgment on us and made us feel guilty when we stepped out of line. Instead, it was the superego - that idealized concept of what a good person is supposed to be and do - given to us by our parents, that condemned us for what had been hitherto regarded as ungodly behavior.