My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway.

I think I could make the case for any kind of organized religion, but I'm not an expert in those, so let me narrow my focus to talk about Christianity.

In my book, The Sins of Scripture, I traced the development of tribal religion, which included ideas like God's killing the Egyptians because they hated the chosen people. Then a God of love finally appears in the Book of Hosea, about the 8th century. A God of justice appears in the Book of Amos in the late 8th century or early 7th century.

Pat Robertson said the feminist movement was just a bunch of lesbians who wanted to leave their husbands and kill their children. I quoted him in my book. It's a fantastic statement.

There are some great values in Christianity, but I think the values are located more deeply in our humanity than they are in our religion. There are certainly some survival values.

I've never met anybody who was helped by being told how wretched, miserable and sinful they are.

Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so.