Daniel A. Helminiak served as professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia from 1995 to 1997, and again from 2000 until early 2018. His academic focus was on psychology of spirituality.

Daniel Helminiak graduated from Our Lady of the Lake Seminary in Indiana and St. Vincent Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in philosophy in 1964. He latter attended Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and served as the Associate Pastor of SS. Simon and Jude Church in Pittsburgh for four years. He completed a first Ph.D. in systematic theology at the Joint Doctoral Program of Boston College and Andover Newton Theological School in 1979, where he also served as teaching assistant to Bernard J. F. Lonergan from 1975-1978. In 1994, he earned his second Ph.D. at the University of Texas in Austin where he studied Human Development. In 1995, he began working at the University of West Georgia.

While studying, Helminiak ministered at parishes in Baltimore, Boston, San Antonio, and Austin. After he openly came out as a gay man in 1976, Helminiak served as a chaplain to Dignity USA, the LGBT Catholic Support network. Much of his later outreach work focused on this relationship of sexuality and spirituality.

Helminiak has authored numerous books, including: the Same Jesus: A Contemporary of Christology (1986), Spiritual Development: An Interdisciplinary Study (1987), The Human Core of Spirituality: Mind and Psyche and Spirit (1996), Religion and the Human Sciences: An Approach via Spirituality (1998), What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality (1994, republished 2000), Meditation without Myth: What I Wish They'd Taught Me in Church about Prayer, Meditation, and the Quest for Peace (2005), Sex and the Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual Growth (2006), The Transcended Christian: What Do You Do When You Outgrow Your Religion? (2013), Spirituality for Our Global Community: Beyond Traditional Religion to a World at Peace (2008), and Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration (2015)