Too catholic to be Catholic

My friends tell me that my name has been invoked in various web skirmishes concerning Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, sometimes by people, including friends, who claim that I nurtured them along in their departure from the Protestant world. My friends also hinted that it would be good . . . . Continue Reading »

Wedding charge

The promises you’ll make in a moment are utterly open-ended. You can’t be sure what will happen later today, much less for the rest of your life. You can take these vows confidently only if you entrust yourselves to the God who is Alpha and Omega, the God who is before every past and . . . . Continue Reading »

Pastoral loneliness

In his Escape from Loneliness. (pp. 22-3) , Paul Tournier laments the “tragic isolation of the elite” that he sees in the Swiss Protestant church. He writes, “I have rarely felt the modern man’s isolation more grippingly tha in a certain deaconness or a certain pastor. . . . . Continue Reading »

Martyrdom and inversions of power

Martyrs are almost by definition in positions of weakness. But the early accounts of Christian martyrs show that martyrdom tended to overturn the balance of power. Two examples from Eusebius illustrate the point. One story begins with a domestic conflict. A Christian wife married to a philandering . . . . Continue Reading »

Exhortation

“Behold your King comes.” That’s the story of the Bible. Yahweh came as Judge to Eden. He came as Kinsman Redeemer and Lawgiver to Israel. He came in the flesh. He came back from the grave. He will come again. Your King comes, and each time He shakes the heavens until stars fall . . . . Continue Reading »

Generosity of God

Wells again, commenting on the wedding at Cana: “This is not a story of the transformation of poison into safe water. It is not a story of a world deformed by sin being converted into a clean and healthy community. It is not a story of the obliteration or extermination of evil by a divine . . . . Continue Reading »

Righteousness of God

In the Romerbrief , Barth pre-channels Wright on Romans 1:17: “In the Gospel is revealed the great, universal secret of the righteousness of God which presses upon every man of every rank. In Christ the consistency of God with Himself - so grievously questioned throughout the whole world, . . . . Continue Reading »

Eros & Agape

In his 2005 Christmas encyclical, Deus caritas est , Benedict XVI explains why love has to be understood as both eros and agape , as ascending and descending love. He notes early on that the Bible rarely uses the word eros , arguing that “the tendency to avoid the word eros , together with . . . . Continue Reading »