God save me from smug, ill informed, modernists who spend their time deconstructing faith thinking that they know what is true. I write to the rest of you, to those who know there is something beyond what we can see, hear, taste, touch and smell. I’m writing to those of you who are yearning for a context of meaning, but who have rightly rejected the mythic-literal frame of the world’s religions. I write to say that there is something beyond that. Enter the conversation. We’ll find it together. Read more

Earlier this week, author, speaker and blogger Rachel Held Evans stirred up quite the controversy when she called Mark Driscoll, a “bully” for his Facebook status update poking fun of “effeminate anatomically male religious leaders.” As Evans observed, Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has a long history of using anti-gay slurs to demonize anyone he deems “unmanly.” Read more

Indeed, for people of faith, The Tree of Life is an exhilarating trip, thanks to director Terence Malick’s deep interest in matters of the spirit, one that was so manifest in his wonderful war film The Thin Red Line. Read more

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most powerful memory I will forever maintain from Wild Goose 2011 is the closing ceremony. To understand why that experience of sharing communion with Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and Buddhist Christians moved me so deeply, you have to know a bit about my story. Read more

As I sat in the heat holding sometimes one, two, sometimes three young orphaned children at one time, I couldn’t help but think of Paul’s beautiful image for the Church as the Body of Christ. Read more

[Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of guest posts by Devin Murphy, a theologically conservative Christian who attended the recent Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina.  Read the first post, The Emergent Church and Me: A Disclaimer, here.] First Impressions of the Wild Goose Festival After driving… and driving… and driving… we finally landed at Shakori Hills. I was expecting to run over some cows on the way in but as I went up a little hill... Read more

True to its spirit and invitation, the Wild Goose Festival was welcoming and inclusive of all -- including it turns out, conservative Christians! I met one such young man, Devin Murphy, the first night at a party at the Patheos RV. He had come to listen. Read more

It’s Week Two of our Symposium on Progressive Christianity at Patheos (in conjunction with our renaming of the Mainline Protestant Portal to Progressive Christian), and the hits just keep coming.  Look out tomorrow for an interview with Progressive Christian Alliance founder Jarrod Cochran, a beautiful piece on progressive identity by scholar/theologian Lisa M. Hess, and a provocative exploration of what really matters in a life of faith, by the Rev. Eric Elnes, host of the weekly program, Darkwood Brew. And... Read more

Birds, bees, spiders, snakes, dogs, cats, deer, buffalo, foxes, turtles ... every one of these and more has touched my life in awe-inspiring ways. What have you learned about God, faith or life from animals? We'd love to share your story on our new blog, Heavenly Creatures. Read more

A recent Pew Center Report notes that 50 percent of mainstream Protestants claim to have had mystical or self-transcendent experiences. Read more