In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as 'heresy' in the churches.

I find that children have very little trouble understanding non-literal stories.

The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures.

The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history.

I become my characters, and then try to allow events in the story to take their own course. I try not to play God, but to let them work out their own destiny.

I often write about nonreligious people, and I try to find situations where their sense of humanity is restored or discovered. I think you can be a good person in many ways. And I think you often have to be careful that prayer can seem superficial, because it's a very complicated thing to love your neighbor as yourself.

But inside, I'm going, 'Oh my God, is my zipper up? Do I have a booger in my nose?' That's my inner monologue.

We have to be careful not to look for confidence in the acceptance of others because true confidence only comes from knowing God.