I am always thankful that the first theology book I ever read was C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. I stumbled upon it in the B. Dalton Bookseller at the local mall early in the summer before my senior year in high school, was intrigued, took it home and devoured it in less than a day. From then on I read anything I could get my hands on by Lewis: Miracles, The Great Divorce, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, The Abolition of Man, you name it. Lewis's clarity, cleverness, creativity, intelligence, and … [Read more...] about C.S. Lewis on Scripture. God’s Word in Human Words. Part 1 of 2
Psalms
Christian Devotional Classics: The Rule of St. Benedict
If time permits, I offer to you The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict for your consideration on this day of rest and through the coming week. Note: As the Christian Devotional Classics series builds chronologically, be sure you have at least given the first part of Thomas Merton & the Desert Fathers a look before reading further. Also, you may have interest in exploring the larger question of What is a Christian Devotional Classic? Finally, as I have already mentioned, please share your insights so that we can improve … [Read more...] about Christian Devotional Classics: The Rule of St. Benedict
What exhausts you?
"People in a hurry never have time for recovery. Their minds have little time to meditate and pray so that problems can be put in perspective. In short, people in our age are showing signs of physiological disintegration because we are living at a pace that is too fast for our bodies." -- Archibald Hart in Adrenaline and Stress. Quoted by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun in Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (InterVarsity Press, 2005), italics in Calhoun. This summer a mix of graduate students and … [Read more...] about What exhausts you?
What Is Ministry?
About 18 months ago, I stepped down from my position as Associate Director of the Emerging Scholars Network and handed the reins over to my faithful coworker Tom Grosh. I kept my toe in the world of campus ministry by continuing to write for InterVarsity and leading a seminar at Urbana, but at the end of this month, I'm going to be stepping down (again) from my role as a blog contributor to focus on my new full-time job as web manager for a Cincinnati-based manufacturing company. It's an unusual career move, but most of … [Read more...] about What Is Ministry?
Public and Personal Encounters with Evil
By any account, media coverage this week has been saturated in violence. We have been inundated by graphic and raw descriptions of the Boston bombings, a live-birth abortionist, and even the Senate's rejection of expanded firearm background checking. These are public tragedies: public displays that evoke charged words like evil, hellish, terror, moral failure. They are also riveting, partly because their scale is rare, but also because they have taken such personal forms. Each of these were made more horrific because … [Read more...] about Public and Personal Encounters with Evil