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March 2022

March 02, 2022

What Is Ash Wednesday?

It's Ash Wednesday. What is that again? Today, Christians in the Western traditions begin the...

February 2022

February 28, 2022

A Boring Apocalypse: What Does God Experience When I Pray?

Prayer is boring In Luke chapter 9, Jesus goes up a mountain to pray as...

February 23, 2022

Diagonal Forgiveness

The art of forgiveness implies a return. A turning back with graciousness to the moment...

February 19, 2022

What Fish Teach Me about Forgiveness

Forgiveness is front and center in any theology worth its name. How does it occur...

February 16, 2022

Where Do We Go When We Die? A Reflection on Macrina

In Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise On the Soul and Resurrection, he tells of his journey...

February 12, 2022

Are God’s Ways Our Ways?

God’s ways are not our ways, says Isaiah (55:8). Occasionally, when expressing frustration about something...

February 09, 2022

The Easter Faith of Stephen Colbert

In an interview last week on CBS’s The Late Show, British singer Dua Lipa took...

February 05, 2022

The Mystery of God, or, When Bad Theology is Good Theology

“Our great mystery is in danger of being made a thing of little moment.” -Gregory...

February 02, 2022

Is God Perfect?

“Has God forgotten to be gracious?” I love that question in Psalm 77. Like so...

January 2022

January 29, 2022

Basil and the Gift of the Spirit

“Everything that partakes of [the Holy Spirit’s] grace is filled with joy according to its...

January 26, 2022

Athanasius and the Intimacy within God

In the early 4th century, after imperial edicts ended official Roman persecution of Christians at...

January 22, 2022

Origen of Alexandria and the Gift of Scripture

“Origen is the whetstone of us all.” —Gregory of Nazianzus Origen's Controversial life Controversy always...

January 19, 2022

Irenaeus and the Slow Love of God

“He appeared as human in the fulness of time, and, being God’s Word, he summed...

January 15, 2022

Does God Have Ideas?

Theologians—especially premodern ones—often use the language of divine ideas to talk about God’s work of...

January 12, 2022

Why I Love Teaching the Church Fathers

I’m deep in syllabus building these days. I’m planning, among other classes, my spring course...

January 08, 2022

The Best Theology Books I Read in 2021

As I'm still in transition between semesters, I thought today might be a good day...

January 06, 2022

Gifts of the Magi

For those opening this link expecting to read about combs and watch chains, I’m sorry...

January 01, 2022

Habits, Not Resolutions, for the New Year

This January 1st, consider dropping the resolutions and spending time, instead, building new habits. ...

December 2021

December 29, 2021

Watch Night and Christian Freedom

Before we left campus for Christmas, my colleague Rev. Dr. Dominique Robinson at Seminary of...

December 26, 2021

But Seriously: A Virgin Birth?

OK Christmas, can we talk about the Virgin Birth? After our recent Advent service of...

December 22, 2021

Why are So Many Christmas Carols Sad?

Why do so many Advent and Christmas carols feel sad? Also: why does that make...

December 18, 2021

Does God Remember a Lost Future?

What does it mean, theologically, to grieve a lost future? I have been doing some...

December 15, 2021

Subjectivity is Truth: Returning to Kierkegaard

“Subjectivity is truth.” That is the famous and famously cryptic sentence at the heart of...

December 11, 2021

What is Hell?

The Bible is ambiguous when it comes to defining hell. Still, I have notice a...

December 08, 2021

What Is Heaven? Part 2

I wrote in my last column about heaven. Specifically, the idea of heaven as the...

December 04, 2021

What is Heaven?

A quick scan of the Bible gives us several ways of understanding the term “heaven.”...

December 01, 2021

The Thrill of Mary the Godbearer

In this first week of Advent, I'm contemplating Mary the Godbearer. All who celebrate Christmas...

November 2021

November 27, 2021

When Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah

You and I were made to praise something beyond our understanding. To desire someone that...

November 24, 2021

Dune’s Religious Horizons

Is theology small-minded? Does it, I mean, depend on a limited perspective? That’s an assumption...

November 20, 2021

Participating in God

All Things in Relation to God The goal of all Christian doctrine is to name...