When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.

What you present as the gospel will determine what you present as discipleship. If you present as the gospel what is essentially a theory of the atonement, and you say, 'If you accept this theory of the atonement, your sins are forgiven, and when you die you will be received into heaven,' there is no basis for discipleship.

Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love.

When pastors don't have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success - models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture.

Religion was a part of our home life when I was growing up. I attended Catholic school. It was a good education - for the spiritual end, as well as for its discipline.

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

The forefathers, including James Madison, felt very strongly that the duties that we owe to God were outside of government's prerogative, that government had no business interfering with the way we worship God.

I always wanted to be honest with myself and to those who have had faith in me.