The language of faith is crucial because it affords human beings the privilege of intimacy with the ultimate.

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

I don't worship the Bible, I worship the God who gave the Bible.

The writer's gift can make us see ourselves and our morals differently than our reality suggests.

He was not hip-hop's most gifted emcee. Still, Shakur may be the most influential and compelling rapper of them all, he was more than the sum of his artistic parts.

My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.

Donald Trump amplifies the worst instincts. And his nationalism is really a white racist supremacist nationalism.

All of us should be much more humble and contrite when we point the finger at somebody else, because four more fingers are pointing back at us.

We can't exempt ourselves from the same moral calculus that we are willing to apply to others.

I was very struck when Min. Farrakhan said if Jesus and Muhammad were here today, they'd be embracing each other. That's a tremendous message that needs to be heard more broadly.

I used to tell people when I preached at a church, 'If you want a great sermon, be a great audience.'

In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.

If all else fails, we then factor (fall) into our equation. And pray hard, someone factors (catching us) into theirs.

If you cannot find the peace, then at least hone the anger...

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.

Baton Rouge happens to be the worst place in the world for a visiting team. It's like being inside a drum.

Controlling your emotions is the biggest challenge for a horseman.

You have to go with things that you understand. Businesses that you know.

A bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet.

I was called to start a mission, not a church. There is a difference.

The notion that we are children of God, his own sons and daughters, lies at the heart of all Christian theology, and is the mainspring of all Christian living.