What's usually called the "theodicy" question asks why there is suffering and evil in the world if God is both good and ...

In this time of rising Christian Nationalism, we Americans need examples of people who can help followers of any and all ...

Some years ago, I began a strange and wobbly effort to write a book I tentatively called The Unauthorized Autobiography of Jesus Christ. It was, I thought, a catchy title, though not as arresting as ...

A month or so ago, in this blog post, I raised questions about the essential purpose(s) of religion and shared some possible answers. But it's a question that doesn't easily go away. In fact, in some ...

If, like many Americans today, you are feeling distress and angst about the moral quality of our elected leadership, perhaps you need a model from the recent past to remind you that the United States ...

I began a strange and wobbly effort to write a book I tentatively called The Unauthorized Autobiography of Jesus Christ. It ...

There are many ways to count the costs associated with the various sexual abuse scandals that have happened over time within institutional religion. Perhaps the most important way is somehow to take ...

As I've done on a few Christmases here on the blog, I'm resurrecting a Christmas story that I wrote for the now-defunct Sunday magazine of The Kansas City Star in 1982. It draws on the characters in a ...

When I was in Berkeley, Calif., recently to celebrate my birthday with my wife and two of my three sisters (one couldn't be there, though she alleged she wanted to be), I attended worship at St.

One of the most dangerous aspects of religion is the willingness of some of its adherents to imagine that they can grasp the fullness of God and understand how, where, when and why God acts in human ...