MICHAEL: Correct. Correct, and I've been reinforced on this even the last couple of years. The end of '90's a wonderful book was produced by Professor David Landes who's an economic historian (Editor's note: Landes had been Harvard's Coolidge Professor of History and Professor of Economics, now Emeritus, and he is the author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor).

Look, I'm just a poor theologian, I'm not a historian or an economist. But he (Landes) wants to find out why economic development went so far in Europe and America when in some ways it started earlier in China and China developed up to a point and then stopped. And so with other countries. He compares cultures. Why, and he discovers it's -- he's not a religious person he says -- but he discovered it's religious as much as anything. That the biblical messages, that God is not part of the earth, that God is separate from the earth is important because then you don't treat the earth as sort of God's body. But you realize that God wants you to do things.

And secondly there's a notion of Judaism and Christianity that there's progress and decline and it's the vocation of Jews and Christians to build up the Kingdom of God. To be ready for the coming of the Messiah, for Jews. And for Christians, believing that the Messiah has come to make ready for the second coming and to make a world of greater justice and love and truth to the best of our ability.

HATTIE: Which requires action and doing --

MICHAEL: Exactly.

HATTIE: -- and getting up every day and trying.

MICHAEL: And millions of people doing that. Millions of people getting up every day and trying to change the world, at least a little bit in their little part. That's not universal among religions, but you do find it wherever there are Jews and Christians.