I went to a university that specializes in evolutionary biology. The faculty included Nobel laureates, one of whom passed electrical current through inorganic compounds to produce nucleic acids, the building blocks of life. His experiment demonstrated how evolution...

Janet’s mother-in-law is wicked mean! I’ve met her. She’s a piece of work! Syrupy sweet to her face, she says horrible things behind Janet’s back. Even face-to-face her sweetness drips with subtle digs. It hurts Janet’s feelings. She's tried to make the relationship...

Here’s a story I picked up in church. You might know it. We human beings began our journey innocently enough, in a garden. But evil invaded our souls and destroyed our intrinsic goodness. It altered human nature and broke the whole planet. Everything became forever...

I learned a phrase in school: creatio ex nihilo. It’s Latin, so it made me feel smart. So much so, I was ready to own it before I understood it. It means "created out of nothing" and refers to how the world was made. God created it, the story goes, out of nothing....

For a decade as a young adult, I couldn’t believe in God. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d grown up devout, but I just couldn’t make myself believe. Around that time I ran into Heinrich Zimmer, a religious historian and anthropologist. Writing about transcendence, he...