Religious zealotry plagues the world today, extremists avowing that they have all the truth, all the wisdom, all the divine favor.

Actually, says former Kansas City Star columnist and longtime religion writer Bill Tammeus, the road to a healthy, mature faith runs through the valley of the shadow of doubt. Uncertainty is a good thing.

Tammeus, who has covered religion for decades for The Star, The Presbyterian Outlook and The National Catholic Reporter, as well as in his daily Faith Matters blog, draws deeply from his own Protestant experiences in a discussion of his new book The Value of Doubt: Why Unanswered Questions, Not Unquestioned Answers, Build Faith. He maintains that it’s the willingness to question, to reconsider, to be comfortable with ambiguity and paradox that will save faith from the hands of those who seem to know all the answers before they ever hear the questions.