American Muslims - young American Muslims in particular - are starting to understand that unless they are willing to stand up for all the other oppressed communities in this country, including those discriminated against for their gender or sexuality, then no one will stand up for them.

Few Iranians these days go through the fiction of calling themselves 'Persian.' Calling yourself Persian is a way of distancing themselves from Iran.

It is no exaggeration to say that Syria holds the key for nearly all of America's foreign policy goals in the Middle East. As Syria goes, so goes the region.

I think if you place Jesus firmly in the historical context... you can make very educated hypotheses and guesses about how he lived.

Christianity is not about religion. It's about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It's about finding joy and finding home.

I am the protector of all lives. I am present even before the creation. I am prime God.

I think the best way to view the Gospels is to view them as a magnificent portrait being painted by Jewish artists to try to capture the essence of a God experience that they believe they had with Jesus of Nazareth.

It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with.