Many people are leaving church over questions of belief or doctrine. How are people who are leaving church maintaining spiritual practices?

Many people are leaving church because of some speculative doctrines, supernatural beliefs, and unkind practices that they found in church. Where are they finding community after leaving church?

Christianity uniquely emphasizes creeds, exclusive claims and evangelization, compared to many other religions.

We do not "know" as much as we think that we know, so there are a few questions that I ask myself to clarify the difference between believing something and knowing something.

Since I wrote a book about asking questions, I'm meeting a lot of people who are asking questions. Many of them tell me, "I'm not 'out' with my doubt."

Sometimes, readers will ask me, "If you don't believe in a Supreme Being who creates the Universe and manages human affairs, then what do you believe?"

Jim Palmer, a friend and mentor who wrote the foreword to my book, recently posted a podcast episode called, "Is Christian Theism Dead?" for the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality.

Everyone is agnostic, but not everyone admits it. Sometimes, we confuse firmly-held beliefs with well-documented facts, but beliefs are not facts.

Many Christians assume that belief is the most important feature of religion, since belief is such an important feature of Christianity. However, in most religions, orthopraxy or right action is more important than orthodoxy or right belief. Community and practice are two aspects of orthopraxy.

All theology is speculation, and when we realize that there are almost 50,000 Christian denominations and that all of them have changed a lot in 2,000 years, we see how absurd it is to claim that any denomination, no matter how large or how old, contains "Truth with a capital T." 

In a few weeks, I will be speaking on "Belief, Community, and Practice" at our local Unitarian Universalist church. Since 2000, there has been a precipitous decline in church attendance, aggravated by the pandemic. Today, 60% of American never or seldom attend a religious service.

One of the unexpected joys of writing a book is participating in some interesting conversations surrounding the book -- at author talks, in book clubs, and online. Yesterday, I had an online chat about organized religion with a Facebook friend in Africa who is reading my book.