“If you’re willing to sin to obtain your goal or if you sin when you don’t get what you want, then your desire has taken God’s place and you’re functioning as an idolater.”

"History and Scripture teaches us that there can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without confession. And there can be no confession without truth."

“People need to be taught how to live as part of a body, how to understand and live out our roles as a member of a church, citizen of a nation, and resident of a community. In our self-centered, narcissistic, individuaistic, expressionist age, we are incompetent in the arts of living together.  We may be naturally social and political animals, but we still have to acquire the cultivated virtues of citizens. Churches must help form us into better political animals.”

“The doctrine of the imago Dei, that human beings are created in the “image and likeness of God,” is central to Christian life and practice and touches, perhaps even helps to form, every other doctrine of the Christian faith in one way or another.”

“Being in proximity makes a difference. Relationships make issues real and complicated and personal. Relationships move us from ideology to compassion. We can't love our neighbor if we don't know them. And once we are proximate, love requires us to take action, to stand up for life in tangible ways.”