I've been trying to find a way to start talking about my ongoing process in this particular area, and I don't think that there's really any particularly super way to start, aside from just starting to write. And, as E.M. Forster writes, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

But this blog is not just about fun and games, as many of you have commented following the April 10th post on infertility.

In the coming days, I'll try to see how much explaining I can do about my faith issues here, and to lay things out in a clear way. Some of you may not know much about my faith shake-ups over the past couple of years, but most of you I think will have heard about them ad nauseam, so I'll try to keep the explanatory bits germane rather than mundane. Ideally this could be drawn out by questions or comments from you all as we go.

Here's a quick snapshot, divided into the poles of practice (what I do) and perspective (what I think or believe). I'd invite any of you who are interested in talking more about these things to pen your thoughts in the Comments link below this post.

Practice:

• I attend church, although usually arriving late and often only to meet my friends.
• I almost never read the Bible, but in fact recount it regularly.
• Prayer is an effort, but I choose to make it, both for myself and for my wife.

Perspective:

• I do not believe in the infallibility or the inerrancy of the Bible. On the contrary, I believe it to be a collection of translated texts that humans have used to tell stories about God to each other in various times and places, and to various ends--not all of them altruistic. I do believe that the Bible is inspired, though probably not uniformly. That line in Deuteronomy about the wife of one man grabbing the genitals of another man in a fistfight probably was written by a guy with an aching codpiece.
• I don't believe that the Bible has a special purchase on revealing God's truth, either. I think, for instance, that there is likely divine truth in the Brandenburg Concertos, in Hokusai's prints, in C.S. Lewis' writing, and in the mouths of my elders that has at least as much weight as the fossilized phrases of the book of Acts. Oh, and in Rogue Dead Guy Ale, too.
• I don't believe that we are living in the "end times,"; in fact, I think all attempts to map ostensible foretellings (e.g. , the book of Revelation) to our own circumstances are frankly ignoring the conventions of apocalyptic literature to which such texts belong.
• What about the historical Jesus? I guess these days I don't care too much about him, so much as I attach importance to the role that Christ plays in Christian belief: redemption, abundant life, community with the Father and with others, etc.

I guess that's enough for now -- just a quick take on a few of the evolving facets of my faith, which I have come to see as postevangelical.