Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
Everyone has a read on God of one sort or another. The question of how we read God also has an applied element. Our view of God shapes the way we live; and, obversely, the way we live exposes our actual reading of God no matter what we say we believe. This is a point …
Read More Reading GodThis week is the first in a new fortnightly cycle for Spreading Goodness posts: I’ll offer an entry here one week and then an entry on the Cor Deo blog I share with Peter Mead on the alternate week. I’ve already posted my entry of the week on Cor Deo. I invite readers here to check it out. Go to: http://www.cordeo.org.uk/finding-community/
Read More Which Community?An update: I’ll be posting a separate blog every other weekend on www.cordeo.org.uk in a sharing of responsibilities with Peter Mead in our Cor Deo mentoring initiative. His first post is already available on that site and invites a visit! My first post there is set for next Sunday. Now let’s turn to today’s concern. What drives us? Are …
Read More Love and PowerMost people have never heard of Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135-1202). Yet his voice was notable in a Christian tradition that still has echoes today. He was a mystic and monk who claimed that God intended to work in human history in three stages. The first stage was the age of the Father, that is, the Old …
Read More Joachim’s Notions“Now,” the pastor implored us as he completed his sermon, “in light of what we’ve seen in 2 Timothy 3:16 this morning, I challenge each of you to equip yourselves for life and ministry! God commands us to be obedient and to glorify him through our obedience so I’m asking each of you to spend …
Read More Bible Reading AdviceI spent two years in a locked psychiatric unit during my days at seminary. As a part-time “psych tech” in a secular hospital my role was to support the nursing staff in patient care. The real life of most of our patients was often heart-breaking: in some measure all were broken and hurting. We did …
Read More God in Real LifeLater this week I’ll speak to a group with the task of comparing a “Trinitarian” to a “non-Trinitarian” understanding of God. It’s an important topic; and I probably should have launched the Spreading Goodness site with this question since it stands behind much of what we’ve offered here since beginning. On the other hand it’s …
Read More The Trinity and TrinitarianismOn Friday I read a news release by HealthDay News that cited a study of American college students over the past three decades. It found less empathy among students today than in the recent past. “We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000,” co-author Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of …
Read More Looking for CompassionYesterday I watched a miracle take place. It was God’s work of taking two people and making them one. The wedding was one part of the event. The consummation of the marriage, in the privacy of the honeymoon suite, will have followed. Then in the communion of life that will unfold in days and years …
Read More A WeddingYears ago I read a thought-provoking article by Heiko Oberman: “Calvin’s Critique of Calvinism” [in The Dawn of the Reformation, ch. 11, see p. 265]. There he noted Lucien Richard’s The Spirituality of John Calvin that demonstrated that Calvin turned from a spirituality of devotio (spiritual devotion) to a spirituality of pietas (spiritual piety). Devotio …
Read More Two Traditions