I don’t think Jesus is saying anything at all about self-esteem in the second Greatest Commandment. And it worries me a lot that churches are leading with messages of self-love. I don’t think Americans need to hear a message that starts like this: “The first thing you need to do is work on loving yourself….
Category
Theology
On Children by Kahlil Gibran
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.” And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to…
‘Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend’ By Gerard Manley Hopkins
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c. Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end? Wert thou my enemy, O thou…
Our Common Identity: We’re All Naked Trash, Headed Toward Death
To understand this let us recall Sartre’s famous reflection on a Parisian waiter. He once saw a waiter who was so absorbed in his role as a waiter that he seemed to define himself in terms of that job. Sartre wrote of how this young man was acting in a mode of inauthenticity because he…
I saw that the meaning of life…
I saw that the meaning of life was to make a living, its goal to become a councilor, that the rich delight of love was to acquire a well-to-do girl, that the blessedness of friendship was to help each other in financial difficulties, that wisdom was whatever the majority assumed it to be, that enthusiasm…
Justin Martyr: We who formerly…
We who formerly…valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possession, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we had hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now since the coming of…
Perichoresis: The Eternal Divine Dance
Key to understanding Moltmann’s ecclesiology is to grasp his concept of the social trinity. The ecclesiology that he proposes, and that I take up in my book, is a “relational ecclesiology,” and he gets there by beginning with a concept of the godhead that is fundamentally relational. For Moltmann, God is relationship — primarily the…
The Jihad of Life: An Interview With A Wise Man
My friend Matthew Barlow did a series of video interviews recently with his friend Solomon, who holds degrees in Hebrew and Arabic Language, and is a committed Muslim. In this first video Solomon and Matthew talk a bit about the etymology of the words “Islam” and “Jihad.” I found the conversation to be extremely enlightening;…
John of The Cross’ Luminous Darkness and True Religious Art
It is what John of the cross called “luminous darkness,” and it explains the simultaneous coexistence of deep suffering and intense joy in the saints, which would be impossible for most of us to even imagine. Eastern Orthodoxy believed that if something was authentic religious art, it would always have a bright sadness. I think…
I wish I could read faster
These books are all on my Amazon wish list. I promised myself I wouldn’t order anymore books until I finish the four I’m currently reading–I wish I could read faster :-/