Spring Break
Changed by Faith
Zen beliefs inspire Dallas man to lead environmental campaigns
Chris Blake
Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: Features
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Stuard, who had left the Christian religion more than a decade before, realized that his faith had never left him.
"The service was so beautiful - the singing, the chanting," Stuard said. "As all of this was happening, in mind's eye, I saw this image of Christ, and I realized I was still a Christian," he said.
Stuard's spiritual journey has taken him around the United States as a Christian, to France as a Buddhist monk and finally to the Dallas area as a Christian again, where he has become an environmental activist. Stuard said he has at last found comfort.
Leaving the Church
"I felt like I had a very strong relationship with God," said Stuard, describing his childhood in Houston.
As he grew up, Stuard said he realized something was different - he was gay. Stuard ventured to four colleges over the course of his academic career in search of answers to fundamental questions in his faith. The third was Baylor University, where he took a course on the PBS documentary "The Ascent of Man," which examined human intellectual evolution and critiqued the theological ideology that Stuard grew up with in the Evangelical Church.
"That class was like a supernova," said Stuard, who will speak at Wednesday's Inclusiveness Conference. "It just blasted everything away. I was free intellectually, and I just couldn't believe the faith I grew up in."
Despite the intellectual freedom, he said, loneliness was setting in as he focused all his energy into his studies, and a change in faith was on the horizon.
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