"Everyone deserves compassion. Everyone deserves dignity. Everyone, everyone, everyone deserves love. Why am I telling you this? Because the AIDS disease is caused by a virus, but the AIDS epidemic is not. The AIDS epidemic is fueled by stigma, violence and indifference."
Elton John
Pop superstar, addressing the International AIDS Conference in Washington (The Guardian/RNS)
"I get on my knees every day. And I'm saying an extra prayer now. If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it."
Tom Vilsack
U.S. agriculture secretary (ABCNews.go.com/RNS)
"Being a Christian has a lot more to do with how you live every day than how you vote every four years."
Rachel Held Evans
Author, speaker, blogger (rachelheldevans.com)
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"America is well on its way to a disturbing destination: A nation with the responsibilities of a superpower and the politics of a banana republic."
Michael Gerson
Conservative columnist, decrying escalating partisan political polarization (Washington Post)
"No matter how we may envision the future, the closest any of us will ever get to impacting tomorrow is by living well today."
Matt Chambers
Co-founder of iamsafeworld.org and blogger at ethoshift.com (faithvillage.com)
"Victors are slow to claim victory because they too often assume that numbers of church members are what counts most."
David Hollinger
Historian, on why mainline Protestants don't take credit for influencing American culture in "antiracist, anti-imperialist, feminist and multicultural directions" (Christian Century/RNS)
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