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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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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...

September 2013

September 05, 2013

A Single Great Prayer

He prays unceasingly who combines prayer with necessary duties and duties with prayer. Only in...

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,...

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...

October 10, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 26: True Love

Last week we addressed Augustine’s “psychological model” of the Trinitarian...

October 01, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 25: Source Code

Our friend Augustine, trying to understand the Three-in-One God whom we worship, resorted to Source...

September 2012

September 24, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 24: A Julian Diversion

Augustine is going to take us on a deep, inner journey to the center...

September 17, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 23: A Christ Sighting

“We want to see Jesus,” they said (Jn. 12.21). This request, from a group of...

September 10, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 22: Christodrama and the Human Journey

Our last great voice of this series is St. Augustine, the great Western...

September 03, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 21: The Trinity Is the Gospel

This picture is a famous depiction of Christ as Pantocrator, i.e., Christ in Majesty, Ruler...

August 2012

August 27, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 20: Gregory’s Key to Bible Study

As we pick up our conversation about Gregory of Nyssa, I want to recall what...

August 23, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 19: An Ephesian Interlude

My apologies for missing a few posts while I sailed the deep blue...

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...

July 17, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 16: On the Incarnation, a New Kind of Christmas Story

We’ve earlier identified Athanasius as the bulldog of orthodoxy, the one who simply would not...

July 10, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 15: God from the Inside Out

Last week we left ourselves with a strange God and a God who is a...

June 2012

June 26, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 14: Putting Jesus on the “Outside” of God

Is the Son “inside” of God or “outside” of God? This seems to be the...

June 20, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 13: How Close Is Jesus to the Heart of God?

It all comes back to Jesus. All the goodness, all the blessing, all the wonder...

June 12, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 12: Creation Spirituality, Human Souls, and the Need for Systems

If I were writing a Harry Potter novel, at this point I think I’d post...

June 07, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 11: Riding the Rapids, or the Stream of Orthodox Christianity

If you’ve stuck with this exploration thus far, you’re doing well. I know we’re wrestling...

May 2012

May 31, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 10: Suspicions and Semantics

In our last post, we met some actual characters in the dialogue. Let’s all step...

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 15, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 8: What Makes a Heretic?

The brouhaha began because people wanted to understand, they wanted to explain, they wanted to...

May 08, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 7: Before Nicaea

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

May 03, 2012

Trinitarian Spirituality, 6: Two Starting Principles

When Anatolios tells us that there are two fundamental principles that must undergird our explorations...

February 2011

February 02, 2011

“Woman, you have great faith!”: Our Christian Memory

Whenever I teach a survey of Church history, I include at the very beginning some...