Category Archives: Spirituality & Faith
David James Duncan: Neighbor = Me
To be a Christian … is to immerse oneself in unstinting fiction making. Jesus’s words “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” to cite a famously ignored example, demand an arduous imaginative act. This deceptively simple line orders me, as I look at you, to imagine that I am seeing not you, but me, and then to [...]
On Being Judgmental
I was hit hard a few weekends ago with the conviction that I am thoroughly judgmental. It wasn’t a coincidence that I had spent the evening at the Des Moines Arts Festival: my convictions were doubtless catalyzed by the thousands of people that had surrounded me for the past three hours.
Throughout the evening, I just [...]
…As Yourself
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love [...]
Your Neighbor…
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love [...]
Rerun: Objections, and Kenosis
These were originally posted September 26 and 28, 2008. I combined them into one entry here. Hopefully this will be the last of the reruns.
If I doubted my faith, it wouldn’t be due to scientific evidence or philosophical reasoning. The most compelling arguments against my faith are the practical ones, the arguments based on things [...]
Rerun: Plastic Jesus
Amanda’s cell phone is four years old. It’s an old monochrome Nokia from before the days of flip phones, and it works better than any phone I have ever seen.
Despite its age, it holds a battery charge for a week, and gets reception in places you wouldn’t believe. It has been dropped a few times, [...]
List: Tone Changes Meaning
Without realizing it, we read dialogue in the Bible with an imagined tone of voice. Here are three things Jesus said where the meaning changes depending on how I hear him saying it.
1. “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye.” (Luke 6:41-42)
I always thought of Jesus saying this in a stern, almost [...]
C. S. Lewis: Longing
In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by [...]
Harelip Prayers
Every Sunday morning the Christian radio station in Waterloo broadcasts the live service of a small church in the area. When we had band practice before church, Matt usually picked me up right as this church’s band was playing. As we scanned the stations, we’d sometimes go right past their service, but other times we’d [...]
Rich Mullins: Closeness to God
I’m all the time being asked by people, “How do you feel closer to God?” And I kind of always want to say, “I don’t know.” When I read the lives of most of the great saints, they didn’t necessarily feel very close to God. When I read the Psalms I get the feeling like [...]
