Quotes about Inclusivity

Whether the Sikhs want to worship in Wisconsin or the Christians want to worship in Texas or the Jews want to worship in New York, we're living under the magnificent umbrella of a Constitution that says we can.

No one is better or worse than anyone else, just different. You're okay, they're okay.

As Christians, we should be the best collaborators in the world. We should be quick to find unlikely allies and subversive friends, like Jesus did.

I also heard a good metaphor from a rancher. He was talking cows, but I think it works with people too. He explained that there are two ways to keep your cows together. One is by building fences and gates. The other is by creating a really good food source. When you create a really good food source in the center, you don't have to worry as much about all the gates and fences and who's in and who's out.

In our culture of "seeker sensitivity" and radical inclusivity, the great temptation is to compromise the cost of discipleship in order to draw a larger crowd. With the most sincere hearts, we do not want to see anyone walk away from Jesus because of the discomfort of his cross, so we clip the claws on the Lion a little, we clean up a bit the bloody Passion we are called to follow.

Biological family is too small of a vision. Patriotism is far too myopic. A love for our own relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but our love does not stop at the border.

I tell people all the time, preached a couple Sundays about it. I'm for everybody. You may not agree with me, but to me it's not my job to try to straighten everybody out.

The constitution is for us all to live together, a common life, we need each other.

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.

Surely the better way is to pursue a generous orthodoxy, seeing disagreements in the context of the greater agreements which bind us together.

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it?

The idea that our common humanity mattered more than our differences was stitched into my DNA.