Philosophy, Spirituality, and Mysticism
Humans are a part of Nature, and God is said to transcend Nature. But yet Christ is supposed to be within us always. So God is both within us and beyond us. She is us. But She is beyond us as She is beyond everything. But somehow also incarnated in everything. This makes ideas like … Read more
I am in continued amazement that my life turned out so well. Why me? Why are things so good? Are they always easy? No. But overall, I am blessed. I am grateful. Beyond grateful. By any reasonable metric of global human success, I am rich. However, I’ve found myself lately calling myself a Christian, or … Read more
“The Bible.” Just that phrase is enough to invoke an involuntary gag on my part, slightly disgusted at all the baggage it inherits from the particularly noxious American (and Southern) brand of toxic, evangelical Christianity I grew up with. There are two basic approaches to “The Bible”: one is faith-based, the other is…more critical, for … Read more
Was Jesus a Stoic? If by “Stoic” we mean explicitly a member of the Hellenistic School of Philosophy started by the Greek philosopher Zeno in the 3rd century BCE, then no. But Jesus was not some backwoods carpenter with no exposure to the broader world of Greco-Roman philosophy. The Bible tells us He was learned, … Read more
When I was growing up in the Southern Baptist Church, my Pastor always denounced the dangers of relying on anything other than the literally-interpreted Word of God. He denounced the act of “cherry-picking” the parts of the Bible that we liked and ignoring the parts of the Bible we didn’t like. He would say cherry-picking … Read more
Did Jesus bodily rise from the dead? This is the core question of Christianity. Many Christians believe that the entire crux of Christianity depends on the truth or falsity of this claim. Such Christians believe that if we could someone travel back in time and discover that Jesus’ physical body was still in the tomb then the … Read more
How can I let go of my ego? This question is asked by many spiritual seekers. If you dabble at all in spiritual matters, you will be bombarded from messages from every direction insisting that you “must let go of your ego!” The ego becomes this great spiritual boogeyman, and we try to run from … Read more
The central claim of the orthodox Christian faith is that Jesus Christ was crucified and three days later was resurrected. The Christian scholar N.T. Wright argues from a careful study of Jewish and Christian sources that the early Christian apostles claimed very specifically that Jesus underwent a bodily resurrection. From a Jewish context, this is … Read more
Faith without works Paul said in Romans 3:28 that “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” Verses like this have given rise to the central Protestant doctrine of sola fide, or faith alone, which is the idea that we are “saved by grace alone” rather than … Read more
The Gift of God’s Presence God’s presence in our lives is like a gift I can unwrap by merely shifting my awareness and intention in a small, quiet way. God’s presence is a gift that keeps giving itself as something to be continuously experienced. It is a gift that prolongs forever that feeling of joy … Read more