The best way in the world to deceive believers is to cloak a message in religious language and declare that it conveys some new insight from God.

Hope founded upon a human being, a man-made philosophy or any institution is always misplaced... because these things are unreliable and fleeting.

American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Since God knows our future, our personalities, and our capacity to listen, He isn't ever going to say more to us than we can deal with at the moment.

I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.

Just as people can watch spellbound a circus artist tumbling through the air in a phosphorized costume, so they can listen to a preacher who uses the Word of God to draw attention to himself. But a sensational preacher stimulates the senses and leaves the spirit untouched. Instead of being the way to God, his 'being different' gets in the way.

There was one theory put forth by a journalist recently. I have a lot of friends that have died prematurely and a lot of friends that have died of natural causes. I've lost a lot of people over the years. This journalist basically recommended to me that God keeps me around because I amuse him.

Real spiritual authority has to do with the truth of the actual words being spoken, and the spirit of the person behind the words. Really, authority is about truth: honest-living truth.