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Select a Category Advent Ascetical Theology Book Reviews Children and Parenting Easter Epiphany Friends of God Lent Life in the Spirit Ludolph Pascalian Spirituality: a series Politics Prayers Six Neo-Christian Myths Spiritual Formation Tales from My Father Trinitarian Spirituality: a series Uncategorized

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November 2015

November 09, 2015

The Igniting God: Life in the Spirit

Some of the stories from the Desert Fathers and Mothers are just too weird to...

October 2014

October 31, 2014

How to Be a (Better) Protestant in Five Easy Steps

Reformation Day doesn’t make me giddy, but it does afford me the opportunity to think...

August 2014

August 18, 2014

The Green Isle Community (Friends of God 5)

The Friends of God were committed to community. While their associations with each other were...

August 15, 2014

Honesty or Heroism? (Friends of God 4)

When we think of the Middle Ages, and we try to imagine the ordeals people...

August 10, 2014

The Atmosphere of God (Friends of God 3)

Imagine running a large organization—a multinational organization—with thousands of employees, complicated networks of incomes and...

April 2014

April 11, 2014

Friends of God

Every generation, as it ages, seems to feel that things have gone awry, that the...

February 2014

February 27, 2014

Neo-Christian Myth #4: The Sweet Tooth of American Christianity

When we study church history, the prevailing tension is one between continuity and ingenuity—between...

February 18, 2014

Neo-Christian Myth #3: Muddling Music

Lest I offended preachers everywhere by my last post, I’ll take a moment here to...

June 2013

June 24, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Praying Like Elijah

“What a long way it is between knowing God and loving him!” (f. 377) Ultimately,...

May 2013

May 23, 2013

A Trilogy of Celebrations: 1 + 1 + 1

As a child, I only got two religious holidays—Christmas and Easter—and even then, they were...

May 01, 2013

My House: God’s Favorite Place on Earth

(A Book Review) “Living after you have died is strange.” So Lazarus tells us. An...

April 2013

April 09, 2013

Making Room for the In-Laws

Marriage is the ultimate melting pot. Unless you’re one of those whose families knew each...

January 2013

January 29, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The Augustinian Problem

In pursuing Pascal, it is not long before we come face-to-face with a conundrum. It’s...

November 2012

November 20, 2012

Tales from My Father: On Prayer and Two Old Women, One with Blue Hair

As pastor’s kids, we enjoyed a certain amount of both notoriety and adulation, depending on...

October 2012

October 18, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 27: The End?

We’ve come to Anatolios’ conclusion, a chapter rich with ideas and summaries. I could...

July 2012

July 31, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 18: Believing in the Right Direction

If Athanasius was too big for words—too grand, too dominating, too heroic—Gregory of Nyssa...

July 24, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 17: Luminosity

Thus far, our conversation about the Three-in-One God we worship has been pretty much...

May 2012

May 22, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 9: Cast of Characters, Better than a Russian Novel

Inside of the oldest church in Egypt We have a significant cast of characters when...

May 08, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 7: Before Nicaea

We may wonder why all this Trinitarian fuss arises in the 4th century… 300 years...

April 2012

April 26, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 5: Mystagogy, Event Horizons, and the Nicene Creed

We’re exploring the idea of a Christian spirituality that is more thoroughly grounded in the...

April 02, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 1: The First Question Must Be Why?

Note to Reader: This series on Trinitarian Spirituality explores the history and spirituality behind...

August 2011

August 08, 2011

Rebuild My Church

As many of you may know, my passion is the Church -- its unity, its...

May 2010

May 06, 2010

Doubt, the Great Jeopardy? — First Blush

Doubt is on my mind. It really feels like an autumn topic, I think –...

February 2010

February 17, 2010

Ashes and Guilt by Association

I walked into the noon service today, and felt a great sense of comfort at...