I do not think either virginity or old age contemptible, and some of the shrewdest minds I have met inhabited the bodies of old maids.

But it was never actually that big a deal. Jenkins didn’t really disbelieve in the Resurrection: he merely questioned the historical veracity of the New Testament narratives. It was mildly interesting: one side saying “I...

It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature-whether theological or technological-is a kind...

…the operative idea here is that there is a right and wrong theology — a right God and a wrong God. But this is an invalid premise. All versions of God are the same thing:...

How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter...

Wherever there is abuse there is also corruption. Politics, philosophy, theology, science, industry, any field with the potential to affect the well-being of others can be destroyed by abuse and saved by good will.

Its helpful to know the reasons for our faith…it helps us not be so vulnerable to doubt, and it helps us not be so vulnerable to false doctrine.

The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person...

Isn’t that funny, that deity is passe but the attributes and implications of deity linger–

I want you to see persecution and opposition and slander and misunderstanding and disappointment and self-recrimination and weakness and danger as the normal portion of faithful pastoral ministry.

The difference between us and the papists is that they do not think that the church can be ‘the pillar of the truth’ unless she presides over the word of God. We, on the other...

I write with the entire alphabet, not just the popular letters.Readers don’t want to lose themselves in the text. They want to find themselves in it.

Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present.

The question is not, therefore, _whether_ a theory is grand or small, or whether it is universal/global or particular/local, but _what function_ a theory plays and _whose interest_ it serves.

I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian… The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking...

There is a beauty in paradox when it comes to talking about things of ultimate concern. Paradox works against our tendency to stay superficial in our faith, or to rest on easy answers or categorical...

She had experimented with Wicca eight years ago, found that her spells did not produce the desired results of making her every bully bald and fat, and threw it in the corner of her soul...

God impressed me with this a long time ago: ‘Roddy, I will never do anything through you until I have done it to you!’.”~R. Alan Woods [1998]

But here we see the peace of God is not the absence of negative thoughts, it is the presence of God himself.

For Calvin, the creation reflects its Creator at every point. Image after images flashed in front of our eyes, as Calvin attempts to convey the multiplicity of ways in which the creation witnesses to its...

When they realized they were in the desert, they built a religion to worship thirstiness.

Any amount of theology can be smuggled into people’s minds under cover of romance without them knowing it.

Creation is the result, but not the beginning of love. Redemption is the manifestation of God as love, and therefore points to a love of absolute necessity and eternity. God is love, not God became...

Jesus did not die just to save you from hell. He paid the price to give you all of heaven.

If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a...

I am not very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support. Such arguments have often been found unsatisfactory in the past. In the time of Galileo it was argued that the...

It helps to not confuse theological philosophers with evangelists. There is a difference but objectively neither better than the other: an evangelist’s mission is to convert; a theological philosopher’s mission is to build an understanding...

The Christian is free from all other human beings. He does not have to live over against others, controlled by their actions and responses. Rather, he lives according to Christ’s commands. This is Christian freedom....

In my view, the gospels are true, not historically, but theologically, or, as I would argue, prophetically! What we have is, the Messiah’s history written in advance in story form.

Everything hinges on the Christ of the cross. The fact of the cross is the axiom of theological thought. It is impossible to think about the gospel if we have the slightest hesitation on this...

We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We...

Theologians and other clerks, You won’t understand this book, — However bright your wits — If you do not meet it humbly, And in this way, Love and Faith Make you surmount Reason, for They...

I whispered to Dad during Rosh Hashanah services, “Do you believe in God?” “Not really,” he said. “No.””Then why do we come here?”He sucked thoughfully on his Tums tablet and put his arm around me,...

Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be...

the overall theme of theology can be twofold: the search for meaning and the responsibility one has to the others.

The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life―until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.

The lust of the flesh directs these desires [of personal union], however, to satisfaction of the body, often at the cost of a real and full communion of persons.

The themes of Jesus’ teaching are important, but of course he was more than a teacher. All the Gospels put the end of his life at the dramatic center of his story. Here all the...

In order to pick something up, you’ve got to put something down.

Christianity tells us we have free will. God has provided man with a choice whether to believe in Him or not. If God’s existence were logically inescapable, there would be no free will to choose...

Humor is a prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer.

Knowing nature is part of knowing God. Faith directs us to the invisible God, but leads us back from God to the entire visible world.

Prayer is an acknowledgment that our need of God’s help is not partial but total.

For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.

Quit Believing in Lies and Always Search For the Truth!

Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.

You can never make someone like something they don’t like, but you can always help them to better understand it.

Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them...

The unbiblical idea of “spirituality” is that the truly “spiritual” man is the person who is sort of “non-physical,” who doesn’t get involved in “earthly” things, who doesn’t work very much or think very hard,...

Experiencing grief and pain is like falling off a cliff. Everything has been turned upside down, and we are no longer in control. As we fall, we see one and only one tree that is...