Category: Modernity
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Shopping for God
I overheard a conversation between two blue-collar workers that encouraged my soul. In the aftermath of last week’s shopping frenzy (Black Friday, etc.), they were reflecting on the madness. “I had a friend who said he bought his mother-in-law a new TV. He was excited about the bargain.” The other worker nodded. “So I asked…
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The End of the Modern World
“Welcome to the 21st Century!” Pick your issue, and if its outcome conforms to a popular, desired norm you are likely to hear such a greeting. The greeting also implies that a less than desirable outcome is wrong because it doesn’t belong to our time. It might be characterized as “medieval,” “outmoded,” “out-of-date,” “primitive,” “Neanderthal,”…
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Let’s Get Physical
If you go to the self-help section of a bookstore, any bookstore, you see row upon row of books, all promising another method to change or fix how you think, feel or imagine. It is as though we were certain that our lives would be great if only we could think feel or imagine better…
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Doubt and Modern Belief
Why do people in the modern world find belief so difficult? Obviously, many find ways to believe in God and do so with great zeal, but others, even those who describe themselves as believers, admit either to doubts about God or about many traditional teachings of the faith. The more “miraculous” teachings, the Divinity of Christ,…
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An Illegal Christmas
The great advantage to thinking about God in legal terms, is that nothing has to change. If what happens between us and God is entirely external, a matter of arranging things such as the avoidance of eternal punishment or the enjoyment of eternal reward, then the world can go on as it is. In the…
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What Happens When We Play (Pray)
In my previous article I compared children’s use of play to the place of ritual words and actions in the life of the Church. I absolutely did not mean to imply that one thing is like the other. I mean to say clearly that they are very much the same thing. And I say this…
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Playing with God
There are things that children understand instinctively. And the things that children know and understand are worth consideration. They have much to teach us. Among the most natural things children do is play. Depending on how you define play, it is among the first activities in which we engage. It comes to dominate the lives…
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Is There A Christian Theory of History?
I am a child of the 50’s. I became aware of the world around me in the 60’s. I finished college and seminary in the 70’s (and have embarrassing pictures to prove it). I could go on with my decadal memories. I daresay no people at any time have been more aware of time labels…
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Does It Matter How I Feel?
It is common to hear complaints about the materialism of our modern culture. For it is certainly the case that much attention is given to “things” – whether making them, purchasing them, wearing them, or simply owning them. The modern world enjoys material wealth beyond anything ever imagined in human history. But it is a…
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Bones, Bodies and Belief
And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the…
I hope adding these words will be helpful. I’m adding them mainly to flesh out the meaning and use of…