I love this subversive God and his upside-down empire of outcasts, prostitutes, slaves and lepers, where even the twelve disciples were made up of sceptics and terrorists and tax cheats and northern boaties who smelled of fish.

Fundamentalism can happen within Islam, Christianity, liberal democracy and even secularism, because it happens when people refuse to question what they believe, based on evidence, and decide to pursue victory instead of discovery.

‘the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?’

there’s no solution for anything without fixing the hole in the human soul.

how do we know what God would do? You can’t prove someone can’t do something, just because you can’t think of a reason why they haven’t done it.

Tragedy and comedy, problem and solution, hope and despair, they’re all jumbled up together in the human condition.

Most of the things I say in a day, and most of the things I know about the world, cannot be proven scientifically. It’s not that scientific methods aren’t important; it’s just that they can’t help us with a lot of human knowledge. Come to think of it, you can’t even do a scientific experiment to prove that you are there now, reading this book.

people now spread vicious gossip to millions over the internet rather than to dozens in the village square.)

The Hebrews really believed the world would be set free, just like people would be – and they expressed that redemption in incredibly physical terms.