When people charge in with great insistence that this is God’s word all the while neglecting the very real humanity of these books, they can inadvert… - Rob Bell

It is possible for religious people who see themselves as God’s people to resist the forward-calling of God to such a degree that the larger culture around them is actually ahead of them in a particular area, such as the protection of human dignity or the integration of the mind and body or the treatment of women or inclusion of the forgotten and marginalized or compassion or intellectual honesty or care for the environment. Churches and religious communities and organizations can claim to speak for God while at the same time actually being behind the movement of God that is continuing forward in the culture around them . . . without their participation.

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

When you are bored, restless, longing for something more, unfulfilled, feeling like you've settled, haunted by the sense of being trapped in your own life, these are the deep waters of your soul speaking to you, telling you something is wrong, something is missing, something needs to change.