As a theologian Bernard stood in the Augustinian tradition. Like Anselm before him, St. Bernard believed it was necessary to grasp religious truth by faith before one could probe its meaning. His personal mysticism caused Bernard to look from the mind (as in Anselm) to religious experience for certitude.
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I’m beginning to wonder if what we experience as children and, for some of us, as parents in this world doesn’t teach us how God functions as a parent/creator in the realm of our Christian faith. When we turn the equivalent of 15 in Christian years (however long that takes for each of us), does God start to treat us differently – not because we’re annoying – but because we’ve earned a measure of trust?
In recent months, there has been both good news and bad news about diversity. The bad news is that diversity can lead to social distrust. The good news is that it can mean better decisions.
Computer games are all the rage, and many have themes that should trouble parents trying to raise children who care for the world. Fortunately, there are “games with a conscience” that focus on important issues such as poverty, climate change, and energy.
Did you see the Matrix trilogy, which posited that the word we live in was a virtual reality–a clever simulation of the real thing? As strange as it may seem, an Oxford University professor, Nick Bostrom, argues that there is some significant chance that we live in the simulated virtual reality of some future human. And as crazy as it may sound, thinking through the implications of being nothing more than a computer simulations actually raises some interesting philisophical (and yes, theological) questions.
There is a profound sense in which all of one’s life is lived out in God’s presence, and this recognition becomes a powerful tool for understanding all of one’s life as being consecrated unto God. The Carmelite lay brother Nicholas Herman (1611-91), known as “Brother Lawrence,” cultivated and practiced this sort of life, and its character has been preserved for us under the title Practice of the Presence of God (1692).
Shortly after the Rev. Zachariah Jok Char–one of Sudan’s “lost boys” who walked hundreds of miles to escape strife in that country–was ordained to the
In an effort to help ease prison overcrowding by providing opportunities for inmates to improve their behavior and reduce recidivism, faith-based criminal justice programs are
The LA Times has a feature this week on a Denver pilot who takes “faith leaders from all walks of life” on helicopter rides to