Within the space of a few hours, my friend revealed to me that he sleeps with multiple partners and uses drugs. For a recovering fundamentalist like me, this was a lot to swallow.

As he elaborated, though, my initial knee-jerk discomfort gave way to ambivalence. He lives in a deeply...

I didn't attend church at all last week -- not even on Easter. What kept me away may have brought me closer to the heartbeat of faith.

Absence from church is uncharted terrain for me, particularly at this time of year. I cherish the rituals of Holy Week, the...

"For those whose lives are and always have been without human hope or promise; for those for whom all hope is dead...for the terrible wasting of lives for which we human beings are responsible; we say: Lord have mercy."
-- "Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb," Station XIV from...

My brother-in-law, a thoughtful and deeply spiritual conservative, has a gift for raising provocative questions. Like this one, which he asked me during an author event for my new book: "Do you believe in absolute truth?"

Perhaps I should have seen this coming, but it caught me...

Years ago, a member of my church -- well into her 80s, with limited mobility -- told me she would ask God for a parking space near the front door of wherever she was going. Almost every time, the space was waiting for her.

More recently, I lost my prescription...

Somewhere in the past few days, amid the lingering shock over the horror in Newtown, I had to shut off the news. I wonder whether that gut instinct holds a nugget of wisdom that might help us through the aftermath of tragedies like this.

Our reactions in the aftermath are...

Is it time to lose the whole judgment part of Christianity -- to consign the Bible passages about God's wrath and retribution to the ash heap of history?

It's tempting to throw off judgment entirely, particularly in the season of joy and peace. Bible readings in Christian worship during...

One word was all it took. In any other context, I might have skipped right over it. Yet in this context, it shone a spotlight on the potential of faith and spirituality to heal -- rather than deepen -- divides.

Recently, I read a profile of Rev. James...

I had never seen a collection of bumper stickers quite like this. The trunk lid of the car before me proclaimed three messages:

• Imagine all the people living life in peace
• Coexist (written in the symbols of various faith traditions)
• Bush/Cheney 2004

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...