Every painful consequence of sin is a part of the punishment meted out for sin.

The Bible does not isolate war, as if it were something separate and unique and quite apart, as we tend to do in our thinking. It is but one of the manifestations of sin, one of the consequences of sin.

When you gather up all the balls of life that you try to juggle, it is a very difficult thing to try to focus in on taking good care of yourself. But that's why God invented me - so I can come and teach and preach and make people laugh and give them some education so they can start liking themselves better.

Wilberforce, because of his faith, stood up for African slaves. Bonhoeffer, because of his faith, stood up for Jews. That's Christianity to me.

While many alternate reality stories ask, 'What might have been?' parallel universe stories literalize the war between good and evil that plays inside each of us every day. It's what makes this type of story so perfect for many fantasy tales: we're all just a coin flip away from being entirely different people.

I do think that there is a hunger in the land for a vision of confessional Christianity that is robust, God-centered, tough-minded, able to address today and tomorrow and the next day, and comprehensive.