When you're writing for the New York Times someone reading it knows the topic better than you do and knows when you've messed up.

So while the name Redskins is only a bit offensive, it’s extremely tacky and dated—like an old aunt who still talks about ‘colored people’ or limps her wrist to suggest someone’s gay.

When you're writing for the New York Times someone reading it knows the topic better than you do and knows when you've messed up.

I'm so grateful to Hugo Lindgren, Jon Kelly, and the people who gave me the opportunity to write a weekly column. It's an amazing thing to do, and when I started they both said, you know, the problem with columns is they just exist forever.

One problem with how we think about the Bible is that people tend to jam it into narrower categories, when in fact it is many things all at once.

You live in a society that is shaped in every possible way by the Bible. The language you use, the laws you obey (and disobey), the founding principles of your nation, the disputes about abortion, homosexuality, adultery - these and so much else in your world are rooted in the Bible. You don't have to read it for its truth value. You should read it to understand how your world got the way it is, the way you would read the constitution or Shakespeare.

The process of just being in front of people, having to stand up for your ideas, and ask - and then ask people for money, which is a very hard thing to do.