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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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January 2023

January 11, 2023

The Sermon on the Mount for the New Year: Lessons from Ludolph

If you want to follow Jesus into a new year in new ways with...

April 2022

April 05, 2022

Johannes Vermeer and His Allegory of Faith: a Lenten Tableaux

Many who know about 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer think first of his “The Girl...

November 2019

November 12, 2019

Dark Faith

It seems to me at this stage of my life that one of the harder...

August 2018

August 14, 2018

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other: Real Christianity?

I begin with the best of intentions, but rabbit holes multiply like bunnies, and are...

May 2018

May 31, 2018

I Believe in the Prosperity Gospel

Maybe two of you who are reading this have opened it because of the title,...

April 2017

April 26, 2017

Hangs My Helpless Soul on Thee

It is a mystery, unsolved and unsolvable, why some people believe and others do not,...

January 2016

January 26, 2016

Where Does (Your) Faith Come From?

Working as I do in the wood between the worlds of religion, I am...

March 2014

March 04, 2014

Neo-Christian Myth #5: The Velocity of Holiness

There’s a delicious irony in the fact that one of evangelical Christianity’s favorite phrases—“a long...

February 2014

February 12, 2014

Neo-Christian Myth #2: the Preaching Pickle

Poor Donald Miller has been web-torched for his post. It has, at this writing, 479...

February 05, 2014

Six Neo-Christian Myths: Exiting the Arc of Christian History

Today I ran across a post by Donald Miller of Blue Like Jazz fame and...

September 2013

September 05, 2013

A Single Great Prayer

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

August 2013

August 15, 2013

Impossibilities

“It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find...

July 2013

July 23, 2013

Finding the Way, and Loving the Journey

(A Book Review) As someone who has lived in a one-mile radius for thirty years,...

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,...

June 17, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Setting Our Hearts

I’ve been reading my way through the Old Testament again and have reached the sad,...

June 10, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Diminishing Your Passions or Increasing Your Hunger

In our last Neo-Pascalian conversation, I indicated that fragment 418 held yet another clue to...

April 2013

April 24, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The Second Step Toward a Make-Believe Faith

I want to begin this part of the conversation acknowledging a comment to my last...

April 02, 2013

Easter: Tripping Over Joy

The Easter season has only just begun. It will go on for another seven weeks,...

March 2013

March 27, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: From Gambling Table to Altar

One of the concepts Pascal is best known for is his Wager, a longer fragment...

March 19, 2013

Loving Mrs. Turpin, Loving the Grotesque

If I were less ordinary, reading Flannery O’Connor would be more fun. As it is,...

March 12, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The Third Order

In our last Pascalian conversation, I left you with fire. And if you’ve had an...

March 03, 2013

My Mother’s Morals

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom these days anyway, since it has been...

February 2013

February 25, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Fire

When Pascal died, those who prepared his body for burial found sewn into the lining...

February 18, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: An Indiana Jones Kind of Faith?

Earlier we took a quick look at a scientific experiment conducted by Pascal in 1646,...

February 12, 2013

Pascal, Ash Wednesday, and the Hidden God

In the Anglican Ash Wednesday ritual, we pray for the grace of true repentance. Repentance...

February 05, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Poised Between Two Worlds

Last week we explored the Jansenist effort to reconstruct Christian community as the fellowship of...

January 2013

January 21, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The Back Story

Okay, this week we’re diving into French history, which might not be your cup of...

January 15, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: A Personality Quirk?

As we pointed out last week, Pascal’s actual scientific and mathematical work has been far...

January 05, 2013

Becoming a Neo-Pascalian

Yesterday I wound up the last obligations of my fall courses. This included grading a...

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...