“When people say, you know, 'Good teacher,' 'Prophet,' 'Really nice guy'... this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you're left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who he said he was or a complete and utter nut case. You have to make a choice on that.”
“Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems - from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.”
“Sadly, I do my homework. I've a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I'll read C. Fred Bergsten's defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It's embarrassing to admit.”
“If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.”
“My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.”
“The most powerful idea that's entered the world in the last few thousand years - the idea of grace - is the reason I would like to be a Christian.”
“Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We're standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.”
“You've gotta be very careful that grace and politeness do not merge into a banality of behavior, where we're just nice, sort of 'death by cupcake.'”
“There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.”
“Jesus isn't lettin' you off the hook. The Scriptures don't let you off the hook so easily... When people say, you know, 'Good teacher', 'Prophet', 'Really nice guy' ... this is not how Jesus thought of Himself.”