Well, I affirm orthodox Christian faith. I affirm the Nicene Creed. I don't think I'm doing anything terribly new.

To elevate abstract doctrines and dogmas over living, breathing, embodied experiences of God's love and grace, then, is going the wrong direction. It's taking flesh and turning it back into words.

The Christian faith is mysterious to the core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can't be put into words. Language fails. And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not.

I have met countless people who call themselves Christians who don't appear to have any living breathing vibrant connection with the resurrected Christ and I've met countless people from every religious background including atheists that tell me of their very personal and real experiences of the living Christ. I don't have people asking me why they should believe something - that's starting off on the wrong foot to say the least.

A lot of Christians have been taught a story that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis, instead of chapter 1. If your story doesn't begin in the beginning, but begins in chapter 3, then it starts with sin, and so the story becomes about dealing with the sin problem. So Jesus is seen as primarily dealing with our sins.

What we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like.

One truth is that suffering raises profound questions with the universe. The other truth is that grace, gift and generosity also raise profound questions.