There's a wider agenda that speaks to what the Democratic Party has historically stood for, which are economic rights for those who are struggling in the middle class, concern for the poor, for economic justice for those who are marginalized in our society.

There are so many similarities between a startup venture and a political campaign - the rhythm, the tempo, the hours, the intensity.

For me, and maybe for many religious kids of the '60s, the church lost relevance the more it became a surrogate in the movement for social and political change.

For the progressive left, social activism grounded in faith and theology crested in the 1960s.

This society in which we live is radically changing. What previous generations saw as evil is now embraced as being good. It is a dangerous and slippery slope upon which we stand when we reject what Solomon called the beginning of wisdom - the fear of God.

Whoever has once been truly unsettled by a work of the imagination will never give loyalty to a single idea, belief system, religious faith or party.

I pored over art books and absorbed the placidness of Monet's garden, the sparkling color of the Impressionists, the strength and solidity of Michelangelo's figures showing the titanic power of humans at one with God, Jan Vermeer's serene Dutch women bathed in gorgeous honey-colored light... My conviction grew that art was stronger than death.

Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.