Making Room for the In-Laws
Marriage is the ultimate melting pot. Unless you’re one of those whose families knew each other well prior to their children marrying, if you’re married, you have probably had an experience something...
View ArticleA Trilogy of Celebrations: 1 + 1 + 1
As a child, I only got two religious holidays—Christmas and Easter—and even then, they were minimally observed. That is, the language and meaning of the historical event was there, but the communal...
View ArticleBecoming Neo-Pascalian: Praying Like Elijah
“What a long way it is between knowing God and loving him!” (f. 377) Ultimately, Pascalian spirituality is about that “long way.” Pascal wrote to an audience that was full of knowing about God. A...
View ArticleFinding the Way, and Loving the Journey
(A Book Review) As someone who has lived in a one-mile radius for thirty years, the idea of life as journey requires some imagination. Yet the journey image, or the notion of life as pilgrimage, has a...
View ArticleImpossibilities
“It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that...
View ArticleNeo-Christian Myth #3: Muddling Music
Lest I offended preachers everywhere by my last post, I’ll take a moment here to honor them with a word of recognition… before I go on to tackle another touchy issue. Preaching is hard work and to be...
View ArticleNeo-Christian Myth #4: The Sweet Tooth of American Christianity
When we study church history, the prevailing tension is one between continuity and ingenuity—between preservation of the gospel tradition and the adaptation of it to new languages and cultures....
View ArticleNeo-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 obedience in the same direction”—comes from the pen of “God-is-dead-and-we-have-killed-him”...
View ArticleThe Adoration of the Magi: Our Impoverishment
Adoration of the Magi, Edward Burne Jones, 19th c. Shall we adore Our Lord Jesus Christ? Is he worthy? “Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king...
View ArticleThe Three Gifts and Their Meaning: a Ludolph commentary
As we celebrate the season of Epiphany–of revelation, of universality, of adoration–we follow in the footsteps of the three wise men (and their inevitable companions on the road: servants, armed...
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