There are two general postures toward life: open or closed. The former is characterized by the risk, passion, wonder and joy of giving one’s self in a whole and undivided way. We reach beyond the encroachment of our self-contained shell by engaging with the people and experiences of life. In these experiences, we necessarily give [...]
On Sunday morning you worship at church, on Tuesday attend a Buddhist meditation session, on Thursday, a Muslim recitation of the Qu’ran and Friday a Jewish Sabbath Eve service. Of course to modern ears this sounds like stretching the bounds of sanity. In the ancient world, the phenomenon of combining religions, sometimes fusing them, at [...]
A life poured out in love is the starting point of all true Christianity, the source and summit of all true humanity. God in Christ has invited us as His people to live as redeemed and redemptive truly human beings by loving God and neighbor with the totality of our being. The full and unreserved [...]
This is the beginning of a series in which I hope to distill a synthesis of my learning and experience with respect to the manner in which one cultivates a deep spiritual life. My intention is to combine both an understanding of how the spiritual life works along with what practically to do to experience [...]
Spirituality means “Life in God’s Spirit” rather than a vague and ethereal sense of “religiousness” or “inner attunement.” From briefly looking at the role of the Holy Spirit in the Bible (see part 1 – Christian Spirituality is Not Spiritual), we see that the Holy Spirit, rather than being in contrast to the physical and material [...]
What is “spirituality?” Or, what does it mean to be “spiritual”? Spirituality is often understood as that which relates to the immaterial spirit or soul in contrast to that which is physical or material. In another sense, spirituality is that which relates to a certain form of religion or religious belief. Then “spirituality” means a [...]
“Christianity is not a religion, its a relationship,” is a mantra I occasionally hear. The more I hear it, the more I am taken aback, wondering what exactly people mean. Whatever they specifically intend, the implication is that “religion” is something negative which we would not want to be in any way associated with. However, [...]
It is not so much sin that plunges us into disaster, as rather despair (John Chrysostom)
Revelation 21:7-8 – “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8But as for the cowardly (timid, fearful), the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, [...]
In the atmosphere of contemporary Western Christianity, when someone voices a lament with the intensity frequently found in the Psalms, it is not uncommon for them to be looked at aghast or derided for their deficient faith and concept of God, which has produced such a so-called absence of trust. “If you really knew who [...]
Whenever there are times of great difficulty, pain or suffering, we naturally ask God questions. I once heard someone remark that in a certain instance people were “asking God the wrong questions.” The notion of asking God the “wrong question” struck me, so I made a quick breeze through the Psalms exploring what the God-inspired [...]
