Many years ago, I wrote a Master’s thesis on how communities could be a healthy and necessary context for individual wholeness. During my undergrad years, I had been enamoured with the ideals of “intentional communities” that had sprung up throughout the 60s and 70s. Their track records were very mixed, […]
Can a children’s book inspire a new generation and fan the embers of a movement that will change the world? I suppose I could start by acknowledging that it’s a very fine, if ambitious, goal. The kind of inspiration that can re-orient lives and fill people with hope and determination […]
I’ve always had a certain fascination for monastic life. A couple of my favourite movies (Of Gods and Men & The Mission) are all about monks, and I recently visited the monastic home of the inspiring Thomas Merton. So when I had the chance to review Brother John: A Monk, […]
[Apologies for the dormancy of my blog – I hope to give it a kickstart later in summer. But for now a book review]: As someone who has, for years, taught human sexuality at a university with many students who grew up with Kiss Dating Goodbye and virginity pledges, I […]
The main reason I call myself a humanist* is because I believe God is too. Humanists put a high value on the freedom, beauty and experience of humanity, and this was true long before religious violence and oppression (especially in Europe after the Reformation) drove such a huge wedge between […]
A couple of years ago I began a project that aims at describing a new model of spiritual development. Last year my article introducing this model was published in The EMCAPP Journal. Since then my best intentions to further this project along have stalled in the midst of a busy […]
So the new term at university came like a tsunami of busyness in the midst of my three part series on getting the enemy right. I promised that third part, and I hate not following through. But it’s not an easy part and I keep feeling my thoughts not entirely […]
I remember a moment in my teens when I was struck by the simple verse in the Gospel of John: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14.9). I started asking myself some questions: Why had I formed an image of God in which a very distant and […]
There aren’t too many of us who could say that they have read nearly everything written about inner healing prayer (in the Christian sense). As this was the subject of my doctoral studies, I waded deeply into this territory because I was convinced that there was something very important happening […]
I’m so tired of people using the words of the “prince of peace” to justify attitudes that lead to violence. And I would suggest that any time we assume that certain people are bound for hell, we are halfway down the road to war; after all, how much can it […]