John Backman

We know very little about God.

This is hardly a new idea. Most of the best-known faith traditions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, view God as utterly shrouded in mystery. The traditional Christian belief about God -- one essence, three persons -- is enigmatic to the core. Meanwhile, the...

To my traditionalist friend,

I think we need new language around the matter of love. I would welcome your help in crafting it.

You know how much the world has changed. Fifty years ago, marriage meant not just one man and one woman, but also a public ceremony,...

One of my online professional groups is more like a family: an assortment of advertising people who have been trading wisecracks, debating the latest TV commercials, and sharing life's ups and downs for more than 10 years. These "family ties" sometimes give rise to conversations with a depth you'd never...

The working title was "gay Christian dialogue," a phrase that makes everything sound so simple: there are gay people, there are straight people, there are Christians.

The dialogue itself taught me otherwise.

For roughly two days, Oriented to Love: Sexual Diversity in the Body of Christ drew together...

When does a fetus become a human being? I don't know. Do you?

A lot of people think they do. We have heard a great deal from them since 1973 and Roe v. Wade. In the process, the two sides have fought pitched battles on a host of issues. They...

When your salvation is complete in both worldly and spiritual matters, you will leave the present world and pass on to that which has no end. --St. Hildegard of Bingen

St. Hildegard -- nun, mystic, poet, composer, force of nature -- wrote her statement during the middle of...

If you're reading this, you might be irrelevant. Don't feel bad: I could be too.

It's easy for people of faith to wonder about their relevancy in a post-faith world. We cherish beliefs and insights that a great deal of our culture now ignores. That puts us on the...

Humility has taken a bad rap in recent years. That's a tragedy when you consider how this misunderstood virtue could bring peace to our souls and change to our world.

For many people, the word humility has come to signify humiliation or self-derogation. Even the dictionary enshrines such...

Earlier this year, I ran a little thought experiment. The results left me wondering whether the combatants in the Bible wars are addressing the wrong question.

I've found myself on both sides of this conflict. As an extreme literalist in high school, I took every word of Holy Writ to...

I am not a monk, but I play one in real life.

That's a flippant way of saying I am a monastic associate -- someone who lives out a version of the monk's life in the middle of everyday life. So in addition to mowing my lawn, I pray...

So I was born this way. Should I stay this way?

There are good reasons to get behind Lady Gaga's new anthem. We can always use more tributes to inclusion and self-acceptance -- especially when we are still so far from embracing all people, regardless...

In the middle of a two-hour chat about matters of faith, my conservative Christian friend told me she had no problem with evolution.

So much for that stereotype.

Amid all the hostility among people of faith, many of us reserve our most potent venom for people of our own...

I had never seen Bill so furious. Low-key and affable, he had learned long ago to take our customers' frequent insults in stride. Nothing ruffled his feathers -- until that day when he nearly throttled the angry woman in front of him.

All it took to set him off...

A colleague of mine was reciting the litany of his nonstop schedule: business meetings here, dinner parties there, small children at home. At one point he said flatly, "I'm just trying to squeeze in as much as I can."

I doubt he thought of his statement as a mantra for...

Faith gives no straight answer to the question of why. Should we keep asking anyway?

Amid the first raw shock of the catastrophe in Japan, why has come forth as a cry from the heart. Many people of faith struggle to respond. Some Christians may trot out St. Paul's...

On the surface, it seemed like every professional event I've ever attended: dozens of my colleagues in marketing and advertising, all chatting at once, discussing the latest ad campaigns and agency gossip and the ever-present "how's business?"

The big difference was the timing. I had never before attended a...

I was glad to see civility make headlines last month, in the wake of the Tucson tragedy. If only the discussion had gone deeper.

The torrent of calls for civil speech and behavior, while admirable, barely touched on the questions that could turn those calls into action. Like most...

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Let his children be waifs and beggars; let them be driven from the ruins of their homes.

Many Jews and Christians know that the first...