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June 2022

June 22, 2022

God’s Faithfulness: A Sermon for Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Texts: Genesis 24.1-27 – Abraham’s servant departing to find Rebekah at the well for Isaac...

June 15, 2022

Transformative Travel: The God I Meet Away from Home

Transformative Travel The next few blogs will be coming from the United Kingdom, where my...

June 12, 2022

Ecclesiality: A Gift from the Russian Church

I’ve written before about what I think is disastrous in contemporary Russian Orthodox ecclesiology, or...

June 08, 2022

Sacraments and Hospitality: Is the Table Open?

I offer today a thought or two about a theological controversy I’ve gotten myself involved...

June 04, 2022

What Does Tragedy Do?

Does tragedy serve a moral purpose? As my state carries on with funerals this week...

June 01, 2022

The Gift and the Receiver: A Trinitarian Contemplation

The Prodigal Son as a Parable of the Trinity A reader of my book Leaving...

May 2022

May 28, 2022

The Meaning of Church, with Help from Gerard Manley Hopkins

What is a church? Let’s consider it specifically: the particular communities where many of us...

May 25, 2022

A Theologian’s Response to Death in Texas

Yesterday afternoon, in the final celebratory days before long awaited summer vacation in south Texas,...

May 18, 2022

Purpose in Life

“I have lived under the impression that a man’s purpose is known only to God.”...

May 13, 2022

Hugh of Saint Victor and the Two Threes of a Holy Life

Hugh of Saint Victor was a priest from 12th century Germany. He joined the Abbey...

May 11, 2022

Why I Am Not (Quite) a Universalist

Last week I promised to re-open the elephant-sized door and discuss Last Judgment. I'll frame...

May 07, 2022

Doing Theology with Integrity

Last week, in a blog about faith, I wrote the following: If we decouple self-awareness...

May 04, 2022

The Three Theologies of Toni Morrison’s Paradise

Now they will rest before shouldering the endless work they were created to do down...

April 2022

April 30, 2022

Faith is Persuasion

Some time ago I had a student in my office who was having a crisis...

April 27, 2022

Rivers of Belonging: Thoughts from the Borderland

At Home by the Water Rivers make good boundaries. Not so much for keeping unwanted...

April 22, 2022

Hegel on the Way to Heaven

Warning, readers: today’s column walks through some weedy speculative philosophy. To quote Lemony Snicket, you should...

April 20, 2022

Is Holiness Human? Lessons from Bulgakov

“Growth in holiness and ascent from grace to grace does not occur automatically, but actively…...

April 16, 2022

What is Resurrection?

As Easter approaches in western Christendom, I find myself asking a very basic question of...

April 13, 2022

Holy Week and Temple Worship

Going Up In Mark 11, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. It’s odd: the text repeats...

April 08, 2022

The Paradox of the Palms

On the eve of Holy Week, I’m noticing the ho-hum way Mark’s triumphal entry account...

April 06, 2022

Denys and the Unknown God

The most mysterious of all the church fathers is a man whose identity we only...

April 02, 2022

The Family-Making Mystery of Christ

To be a believer, for Saint Paul, is to be part of a family formed...

March 2022

March 30, 2022

Heaven for Animals?

Do Dogs Go To Heaven? Last week I received a very serious and very sad...

March 26, 2022

Farming and Salvation

"At Plainsong Farm, God is remaking Christianity. And we get to be part of that."...

March 23, 2022

Cyril of Alexandria and Divine Humiliation

The Humiliation of the Son of God “What kind of descent into humiliation is that?”...

March 19, 2022

Augustine’s God of Motion

“But I am struggling to return from this far country by the road he has...

March 16, 2022

Angels: God’s Trustworthy Tempests

“The world of angels occupies in creation a place which makes it impossible to neglect...

March 12, 2022

The Language Net

Why does God give us language? That may not be a question you’ve ever wondered...

March 09, 2022

The God of Darkness

It’s easy to trust the God of light. I am learning to trust the God...

March 04, 2022

Reading Israel’s Scriptures

I wrote earlier about the Transfiguration of Christ as an unveiling of what God experiences...