Of course the Church is conservative for it has so much to conserve. But let it conserve a vision of the world’s destiny and not the structures of the world’s past. Let the Church in remembering Christ remember that it is conserving the most uprooting, the most revolutionary force in all human history. For it was Christ who crossed every boundary, broke down every barrier. He crossed the boundaries of class by eating with the outcasts. He crossed the boundary of nations by pointing to a Samaritan as the agent of God’s will. He transgressed religious boundaries by claiming that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Everywhere he manifested his freedom and called others to theirs, calling them forth from family, national, and religious loyalty to the world at large. If ever there was a man who trusted his origins and had the courage to emerge from them, it was Christ.

From Credo by William Sloane Coffin (Westminster-John Knox Press, 2004).