I got to know Chris Stedman as he was writing a book to explain how a gay hipster atheist could come to work on interfaith activism as the assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard University.

It's a tangled web, but in Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious, Stedman tells his own story — from his childhood to an adolescence in evangelism to coming out to defining his atheism to engaging in interfaith work.

Along the way, he aims at a larger story. As Stedman tells it, "I offer it up as a case study of sorts — an inside look into why one atheist struggled to find a healthy way to engage with the religious and why transcending our divisions is so important."

Not yet the 25-year-old he is today, Stedman reaches a point in his book — and his life — when he saw all of those steps in his story coming together.

"I want to help organize nonreligious communities that would not only provide a safe space for the nonreligious but would also value reaching out to those with different beliefs in an attempt to understand and empathize, not bulldoze or mock them," he writes.

Over the weekend, I asked Stedman to explain some things to me before I sit down with him this Friday in D.C. at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs to discuss "Faith, Diversity, and Sexual Orientation on Campus."