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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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October 2026

October 09, 2026

When Spiritual Growth Looks Like Losing Ground

Four Passive Spiritual Disciplines: An Introduction When I was a college freshman, our class had...

August 2018

August 28, 2018

An Immensely Formidable Unity

So, I’ve tried to listen well to the comments provoked by my last post. Some...

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...

April 2018

April 03, 2018

The Art of Co-operating with Grace

Writing this on Easter Tuesday, it’s easy to see in the rearview mirror...

February 2018

February 21, 2018

Become an Olympian, Become an Ascetic

“Everything depends upon God, all Christian life begins with grace, all prayer is inspired...

September 2014

September 15, 2014

The Lovely, Lovely Thing (Friends of God 6)

Some of our Friends of God shine like the sun, and their names are...

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...

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 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...

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,...

July 01, 2013

Mean St. Francis

I’ve never seen a St. Francis statue like the one that sits in our back...

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...

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 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 16, 2013

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The First Step of Make-Believe Faith

We are left with this all-important question: how do we get faith? How do we...

March 2013

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...

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 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...

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...