From Sara Miles’ gracious and funny Christian memoir, Take This Bread :
“It may seem crazy, at this point in history, to assert that any religion– much less Christianity, the religion of our contemporary empire, of the powerful and intolerant– can be a force for connection, for healing, for love… But this is my belief: that at the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak to and transform us. As I found to my surprise and alarm, it could speak to me: not in the sappy, Jesus-and-cookies tone of mild-mannered liberal Christianity, or the blustering, blaming, hellfire of the religious right. What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions wide open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new.”