Text messages have helped pastor Mark Driscoll open a window into the souls of his parishioners. What he's discovered: a lot of one-track minds.

After services at Seattle's Mars Hill Church, Driscoll invites the audience text him with tough questions. He answers them in "Ask Anything" videos posted on YouTube.

Driscoll asks that questions follow the topic of that night's sermon, but high school and college students often ask him about sex.

"I could be talking about UFOs and magicians, and their question would be, 'Can I have sex with a magician on a UFO?' " he said. (His answer: "Only if you're married to him.")

Driscoll is part of a new breed of Christians who are putting themselves up to the task of tackling hard questions online from doubters, skeptics and churchgoers on YouTube and at destinations like idoubtgod.com.

Church loyalty might be wavering - as concluded in a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life - but there is still vibrant public dialogue about big existential questions on the internet. Driscoll's videos cover a variety of topics, from the philosophical ("Can God judge me?") to the controversial ("Is aborting a pregnancy from rape wrong?") to the downright uncomfortable.

"If God does actually exist, how would we know that he is a good God and not a demon or a 'clock-maker?' " posted one contributor to idoubtgod.com, hosted by Next Level Church in Charlotte, N.C.

Somebody else asked, "Why do some people have it good, while some struggle the whole way?"

The lead pastor of Next Level Church says contributors ask all sorts of questions and cover a broad range of perspectives, from giving very personal, moving anecdotes about their own lives to taking a philosophical look at the human condition. The issue of suffering seems to be the biggest concern to skeptics, Todd Hahn says.

"Again and again, it keeps going back in responses to that same question: Why in the world do these things happen?"

His answer? That unlike other religions, the Christian god has himself experienced human pain, but from that pain came the greatest good (resurrection). So maybe there's a meaning in our earthly suffering as well, Hahn says.

By leveraging the internet, the conversations can go deeper and to more personal levels than they might in a less anonymous forum. Also, the web can reach people who might not otherwise be engaged by the church. On Easter, Hahn founded his sermon on some of the queries submitted to the blog.

Another site, aimed at college students, includes a comprehensive Q&A section about Christian beliefs that reads like most sites' FAQ pages. Young inquisitors can find answers at everystudent.com to questions such as, "Is there really a heaven?" or "Is premarital sex wrong? Should we live boring lives?"

They can also e-mail their questions and get a personal response.

The director of the site, which is run by Campus Crusade for Christ International, headquartered in Orlando, Fla., says the internet offers an around-the-clock conversation and place for information that church and youth groups don't. Marilyn Adamson also believes that the anonymity of the web allows people to ask questions without feeling judged.

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