Trinitarian Spirituality, 17: Luminosity
Thus far, our conversation about the Three-in-One God we worship has been pretty much a Two-for-One deal. We have spent a great deal of time examining the nature of the relationship between Jesus and...
View ArticleTrinitarian Spirituality, 22: Christodrama and the Human Journey
Our last great voice of this series is St. Augustine, the great Western thinker and writer who died in north Africa as the Vandals attacked the city gates. Here is one of those individuals in...
View ArticleTrinitarian Spirituality, 23: A Christ Sighting
“We want to see Jesus,” they said (Jn. 12.21). This request, from a group of anonymous Greeks who had come to Jerusalem, triggered Jesus’ awareness that “the hour has come.” Augustine, too, recognizes...
View ArticleTrinitarian Spirituality, 24: A Julian Diversion
Augustine is going to take us on a deep, inner journey to the center of the soul, there to look for shadows of the Trinitarian image, and from that vision to return to the greater vision of the One...
View ArticleTrinitarian Spirituality, 25: Source Code
Our friend Augustine, trying to understand the Three-in-One God whom we worship, resorted to Source Code material. May Augustine forgive me for using a modern pap movie to talk about his great...
View ArticleTrinitarian Spirituality, 26: True Love
Last week we addressed Augustine’s “psychological model” of the Trinitarian image: memory, knowledge, and will. Maybe that worked for you; maybe it didn’t. But Augustine had another model...
View ArticleTrinitarian Spirituality, 27: The End?
We’ve come to Anatolios’ conclusion, a chapter rich with ideas and summaries. I could have drawn this out for several more posts, but I became quite “Julian” in my threeness, wanting the series to...
View ArticleWhat Difference Does It Make?: The Kaleidoscope Effect
For the better part of a year, I’ve been working on understanding a book and a doctrine that, shall we admit, are not “bestsellers.” In fact, one of my readers very softly commented: “It was a long and...
View ArticleBecoming Neo-Pascalian: The Augustinian Problem
In pursuing Pascal, it is not long before we come face-to-face with a conundrum. It’s the sticky wicket that challenged Pascal, and while we won’t be able to resolve it, we can at least look at it....
View ArticleNeo-Christian Myth #6: The Guest-on-Oprah Complex
It’s tempting to cut this last post out of the series, stop while I’m ahead (if, that is, I am ahead). I’ve kindled some ire in the previous five posts, and this last has lots of fiery—as in, the...
View ArticleAugustine in English Spirituality: Kindled by Grace
I used to think church history was my grandma and her Scofield Bible. I used to think authentic Christian faith leaped from the moment of the last apostle’s death (John on the Isle of Patmos?) to...
View ArticleTaking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it
“Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.” This line from Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous Serenity Prayer keeps goading me. It compels me to face with honesty, and challenges my...
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