Last fall, our Cleveland newsroom was abuzz after learning that a journalist in Minnesota was suspended for joining his fellow church members in a silent antiwar demonstration.

Tim Mahoney is a part-time copy editor with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which means he edits other reporters’ stories and writes headlines for them. On the last Saturday in September 2005, he boarded one of three buses sponsored by St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis, where he is an active member, and headed for Washington, D.C.

“On our part it was a silent march,” Mahoney told the online alternative weekly City Press. “We just marched around the White House, period.”

When editors found out, though, he was suspended for three days without pay and ordered not to participate in any more political events.

Mahoney insisted he wasn’t being political, but acting on his faith.

“There is an issue of conscience, of religion,” Mahoney told City Press. “I’m not trying to put myself forth as any kind of pious person at all. I’m not. But it’s a matter of personal belief.”

What most interested me about this story was my colleagues’ reaction to it, especially from those who are active in their own churches. Almost to a person, they wondered aloud whether it was possible to be equally vigilant in their practice of journalism and that of their faith.

That this conversation even took place in a newsroom might surprise a lot of Americans who think we are a Godless bunch, what with our impertinent questions, our apparent disregard for social graces. A newsroom, though, reflects the same hodgepodge of religious beliefs found in communities all across America.

In our newsroom, for example, an ordained minister works on the copy desk. Two others in the newsroom—a reporter and an editor, both middle-aged—are part-time divinity students. An editor in our op-ed department works with prisoners through a program at her church, and dozens of other colleagues serve communion, usher during Sunday service, and give Scripture readings from the pulpit. As a community of colleagues, we pray together at funerals, belt out hymns at weddings, and thank God for the babies being baptized.

In all kinds of ways, big and small, we are keeping the faith.

At most newspapers, only the designated religion writers weigh in publicly on issues of faith. Often these stories focus on rituals and practices and the history behind them. These are important stories, usually predictably planted in a designated space on a designated day.

Faith, though, threads through every hour of every day. Our country has become deeply divided over religion, with the far right co-opting Christianity to the point where many of us raised in the faith no longer feel comfortable claiming it. It seemed to me that there was a greater conversation out there.

So I described how the congregation of a church that was set on fire after its leadership voted to welcome gays and lesbians gathered together on the front lawn and praised God the very next Sunday. I wondered aloud why so-called Christians thought it was God’s work to demand that hourly wage earners bolster our faith by saying “Merry Christmas” with each swipe of the credit card. I wrote about an innocent black man who spent thirteen years in prison, leaned hard on his Muslim faith, and forgave the man who finally confessed to the crime.

Some of the reader response was fast and furious, and by furious I do mean angry. I was raised to believe God casts a wide net, but saying that in a newspaper doesn’t sit well with those who claim there is but one set of rules and they bind and constrict us in ways only their particular house of worship understands.

Most readers, though, weighed in with a grace that fuels my own faith in ways that all that chest-thumping never will. One of my favorite letters came from a fifty-three-year-old reader named Donna, who lives in Mansfield, Ohio, a small town near Columbus.

Her first few letters had outlined how she didn’t agree with me about much of anything. Over time, though, she began sharing stories about her own life, including how—and why—she prays. I saved her letter as a reminder of how an abiding faith in God can stretch our reach in this troubled world.

“When I pray at night,” she wrote, “I ask God to let me pray for those who feel as if they have no friend, for those who hurt, for those who are desperate and are without hope.

“Does he hear my prayer? My faith tells me that he does and that he counts it unto me as good. Although I can’t physically be there to give those in need a helping hand my thoughts are with them.

“For those who say they don’t know where their strength comes from during the hard times, I like to think it is the answer to my prayers.”