Some Thoughts On Suffering | June 2008     Read more >>

Dating is Hell (or, Alternatively, Heaven) | March 2008     Read more >>

God and Sports Championships (or Lack Thereof) | February 08     Read more >>

A Christmas Carol in a Secular Society | Jan 08     Read more >>

Dennis & Callahan and the Big Questions | December 07     Read more >>

Want Happiness? Here's the Second-Best Thing to Try | Nov 07     Read more >>

Vote Conversationalist! | Oct 07     Read more >>

Summer Movies and Ultimate Reality | Sept 07     Read more >>

Does God Actually Do Anything | August 07     Read more >>

You've Thrown Off the Shackles of Religion | July 07     Read more >>

The Most Intimidating Word--Starts with a "J" | June 07     Read more >>

I recently participated in a panel discussion on social justice at a conference of about 1,400 people.

Three Cheers for Itty-Bitty Peacemaking | May 07     Read more >>

AMMAN, JORDAN: I've prayed with lots of unexpected people over the last few days. The staff of an Al Jazeera bureau, for instance. Three different Shiite leaders, one protected by lots of men with machine guns.

Anybody Remember The Lost Tomb of Jesus? Anybody? | April 07     Read more >>

Maybe Jesus Lives Next Door     Read more >>

When my wife and I lived in San Francisco, we had a shy and alarming neighbor.

The Problem of Pleasure | February 2007     Read more >>

Why is sex fun? Why does food taste good? Why do we see colors or smell fresh-brewed coffee?

Let's Talk About Race | January 2007     Read more >>

Are you in as many conversations about race as I am? If you're white, most likely not...

In Praise of Trivial Books | December 2006     Read more >>

My bookstore is trying to kill me.

You--Yes, You--Can Be Rich | November 2006     Read more >>

I heard recently from an estate-planner for elderly wealthy people who said that his clients were consistently miserable. And this wasn’t your garden-variety misery that stopped with them. Their children were miserable!

Is Too Much God Bad for You? | October 2006     Read more >>

I had a memorable conversation with a fellow pastor awhile back. He pulled me aside at a gathering and said, "Dave, I love how you're always so positive when you talk about God. But…I mean…when do you get to, you know, the bad news?"

It's Been Five Years Since 9/11 | September 2006     Read more >>

Of course you remember where you were when you heard that one of the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane, and then that the other tower was hit, and then that they both fell ...

Pray for Lebanon | August 2006     Read more >>

Take this for what it's worth, but I had an odd experience just before apartheid fell . . .

Why Are You So Darn Creative? | July 2006     Read more >>

I pastor a church chock-full of artists. You can't throw a rock into the congregation and not hit someone working on a book or an album or a watercolor or a quilt or a fusion restaurant or an organic garden . . .

Does Self-Help Actually Help? | June 2006     Read more >>

I love self-help books so much that my love for them wasn't even tarnished by the one self-help seminar I actually went to . . .

The Da Vinci Code and Me | May 2006     Read more >>

It seems self-evident to me that my happiness has been suppressed by evil powerbrokers...

Who Needs Emotions? | April 2006     Read more >>

Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re reading the words of the only known person provoked to debilitating sobbing by watching Terminator 2: Judgment Day...

Science vs. Faith: Deathsport 2006 | March 2006     Read more >>

I sat in on a fascinating conversation recently with a bunch of biologists as they debated the merits of Intelligent Design...

Let's Talk About Sex | February 2006     Read more >>

So when you talk about sex with your friends, what do you talk about? My line of work limits the possibilities, so I end up in endless conversations about the challenges of living in an over-sexed society...

Proving Yet Again that Boston is the Center of the World | January 2006     Read more >>

Here’s a story I bet you didn’t hear about. On September 22, 2001, eleven days after 9/11, twenty thousand or so folks gathered at Government Center to pray for Boston...

God Help Us, It's the Holidays Again | December 2005     Read more >>

God help us, it’s the holidays again, that strange secular/religious/materialistic hybrid that most of us hate/endure/secretly kind of like...

Perpetual Outrage | November 2005     Read more >>

One of my favorite editorial page moments ever came recently when the Globe ran a typically scathing anti-Bush editorial, only to be greeted with several letters outraged that the editorial writer hadn’t eviscerated Bush still more...