Could such emotional appeals to immediate action unwittingly create a willingness to listen to demagogues who prey on the more primal parts of the human psyche? Could the emphasis on salvation as a critical moment of decision be related to an evangelical need for a clear separation of the sheep and the goats, boundaries that are much easier to see

The gospel according to Jesus is not accepting Christianity as a ticket of admission into society. The gospel according to Jesus means that there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). One can stand before God at judgment only by union with the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ. And can only come in

but first by submerging a life in a different storyline altogether.

“those who choose the lesser evil quickly forget that they chose evil.”[*]

What we are seeing now, though, is in many cases the shucking off of even the pretense of hypocrisy for the outright embrace of immorality.

The death of your illusions, then, is not meant to paralyze you, but to reshape you into the kind of person who can weep and groan at the wreckage around you, which is the first step, of course, to seeking a different sort of kingdom.

The tactics seemed the same as any other political interest group, except with a bigger celebrity endorsement, that of Jesus of Nazareth.

argue about what is true, but to say things that we know to be false, just to prove that we are part of the tribe to which we belong.

Once you own your exile, the threat of exile is meaningless. No one can do to you what’s already been done.