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Evangelical

2026-07-24T20:54:00-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Classical Education That Marched Men to Their Deaths

Last updated on: July 24, 2026 at 8:54 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

An Education to Avoid Juggernaut Oxford and the colleges there, despite some more recent failures, are an educational curriculum incarnate in stone and stained glass. If there was not a single Christian at the school, the buildings would witness to the Gospel. The beauty is incarnate, the spires point to the truth, and the education is good. An Enviable Education that Failed All my life I longed for Oxford. I dreamed of Oxford and when I finally got to visit,... Read more

Family, Parenting and Religion

Education and Religion

Education

On Education

2026-07-24T20:54:06-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Classical Education Needs to Level Up

Last updated on: July 24, 2026 at 8:54 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

The Level Up in the Education Called Classical Writer’s Note: This is the first in a series on classical education “Don’t forget the people in the pews,” in some such language, my Nana talked to me about my doctoral studies in philosophy. She was not opposed to those studies, afraid of what I was learning, but she did worry that education had a habit of causing people to forget their roots. She was not worried about ideas. She was worried... Read more

Education and Religion

Education

On Education

2026-07-07T22:29:25-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Golden, Golden, Golden: My Mother’s Last Lesson

Last updated on: July 7, 2026 at 10:29 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Getting to the Bottom of Things Mom taught me to “get to the bottom” of everything. If you had a lazy opinion, she would make “her boys” examine that opinion, even if she agreed with it. Poor Dad was sometimes driven to distraction by long discussions in the kitchen on topics ranging from assumptions in science fiction to the Civil War. We would beg him to let us continue the discussion for just a bit more and he always relented.... Read more

Progressive Christian

History and Religion

Family, Parenting and Religion

Spiritual Reflections

2025-07-14T12:35:43-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Old Words Are Helpful

Last updated on: July 14, 2025 at 12:35 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Dad is gone. I keep wanting to call him. I need his advice. He is there my reason tells me, but he is silent. Death has created, for the moment, a chronological loneliness that nothing can heal for now. Death is horrible. For those looking for something different, some profound new words about the loss of a great man, I have nothing. I have old words. My Dad spent a lifetime giving me old words in his life. He made old... Read more

Family, Parenting and Religion

Philosophy

Spiritual Reflections

2025-07-01T12:06:20-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When the Center Holds: A Tribute to My Father’s Legacy

Last updated on: July 1, 2025 at 12:06 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Thankful That the Center Held I have seen the end, and in the end, the center holds. Dad was breathing every six seconds or so, Victorian novels had prepared me for the rattle, no book for the sound. Dad, dear old Dad, Daddy, the guy we could ask because he would know, struggled mightily for air. I did not know what to say. I still do not know what to say, but one thing I said caused his eye to... Read more

History and Religion

Family, Parenting and Religion

Philosophy

Spiritual Reflections

2024-09-21T15:44:50-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Baby Anna Beans

Last updated on: September 21, 2024 at 3:44 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Whim Wham, our brilliant grand, approached the water reverently. She was holding a can of beans and proceeded to baptize that object and give the Beans a name. From henceforth until the End, the Beans would be: Baby Anna. Baby Anna has now joined Baby Gorn and Pi at tea parties where no real tea is spilled because no real tea is served. We cannot eat plastic donuts served there, but we can pretend to do so. Baby Anna is a... Read more

Spiritual Reflections

2024-07-03T00:22:17-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Yet I Love Her: History and the Church

Last updated on: July 3, 2024 at 12:22 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

Unless your mother was the Mother of God, then she will have had her faults. My Mom, grand lady that she is, may also have some faults, but if so piety suggests I not share them here. Why would I? The Church does not teach that she is without sin. Why would I state the obvious? Given her essential decency and comparative excellence to all other moms but one, why would I natter? I suppose it might prove that I... Read more

Politics and Religion

History and Religion

Culture

Politics

Spiritual Reflections

2024-07-02T22:47:27-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Vain Repetition

Last updated on: July 2, 2024 at 10:47 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Of all the vanities, the vanity of vain repetition may be the worst. I have heard it said on very high authority that vain repetition even applies to prayer. Whatever it is, we better not do it. I am no theologian, so I shall not venture to comment on prayer, but a longish life has taught me about another kind of vain repetition: one observable even in so simple an animal soul as our Dog Nessie. Nessie suffers from the... Read more

Relationships and Religion

Home and Religion

Culture

Spiritual Reflections

2024-07-01T22:53:02-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

History and Hidden Ethics and Philosophy

Last updated on: July 1, 2024 at 10:53 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Beware hidden assumptions in histories. Too often one gets third rate philosophy the historian cannot defend as philosophy. Often this is justified because “this is just the way history works” forgetting that historians have adopted different background philosophical, ethical, or even theological assumptions at different times. If one adopts a Platonist, a Marxist, or any other view of that (to the practitioner) “makes sense of history” or tells him or her how to do history, then their conclusions will only be persuasive to those... Read more

On Education

Philosophy

2024-06-30T22:21:36-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Iceberg is There: Verbosity Cannot Defeat Reality

Last updated on: June 30, 2024 at 10:21 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Reality opposed smashes the soul. The credentialed pass the ship as safe, after all, the company has made it safer than the rules say they must, and entire papers can be written on the progress shown in this largest movable object ever built by mankind. “Humanity has conquered nature!” Yet the steel is inferior, the lifeboats too few, and there is an iceberg in the sea. The road to hell, eternal perdition, is signposted, often with footnotes, with words that... Read more

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