My experience is that lots of people go to church, sing the songs, tell the story, etc but have profound ambivalence about God.

Some communities don't permit open, honest inquiry about the things that matter most. Lots of people have voiced a concern, expressed a doubt, or raised a question, only to be told by their family, church, friends, or tribe: "We don't discuss those things here." I believe the discussion itself is divine. Abraham does his best to bargain with God, most of the book of Job consists of arguments by Job and his friends about the deepest questions of human suffering, God is practically on trial in the book of Lamentations, and Jesus responds to almost every question he's asked with...a question.

Everybody is following somebody. Everybody has faith in something and somebody. We are all believers.

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody.

It's absurd and quite tragic the way people have managed to pit science against faith. They aren't in conflict at all - they're long lost dance partners. I don't divide the world up into Christians and other people - we are all human beings, brothers and sisters, and we embrace truth wherever we find it, whether that's in a lab, a field or a cathedral. Because sometimes you need a scientist and sometimes you need a poet.

When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of god.

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.