God is love. God is love. Truths don’t get any simpler or more packed with significance. As the defining characteristic of the Creator, love is the basis for everything that exists. Within all the turmoil and pain, dig down far enough and you’ll discover love. I believe “God is love” to be the three most... Continue Reading →
Simple Truths
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” -Albert Einstein The most important truths are the simplest ones. They are the ones that scientists refer to as “elegant.” Elegant truths find the common denominator behind a variety of different effects and express that commonality in a formula or phrase. Simple truths are... Continue Reading →
Awe: The Key to Wisdom
“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of God brings understanding..” Proverbs 9: 10 When I was in my early teens, I remember standing outside on a summer night and looking up at the stars. The sky was crystal-clear, without any clouds, and the Milky Way seemed extra bright, points of... Continue Reading →
Satan
When I was a little kid, the personification of evil was the Wicked Witch of the West. The first time I watched The Wizard of Oz, she terrified me. The image dates back to the 15th century and the witchcraft trials that lasted for three hundred years. An ugly woman dressed in black, covered in... Continue Reading →
The Mystery of Evil
It is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil comes. -Jesus One of the great mysteries in the Bible is the existence of evil. Why is there evil in creation and why do people do evil things? Why does injustice seem built into the fabric of the world? For Christians, who believe that... Continue Reading →
Doomed
“Do you think humanity is doomed?” – Kate, Singapore“Yes.” – Nick Cave, Melbourne[i] There are days I agree with Mr. Cave. He’s an astute observer of the human species, whose closest primate relatives are the sociopaths known as chimpanzees. According to ethnobiologist Melvin Konner, if chimpanzees had invented hand grenades there wouldn’t be any more... Continue Reading →
Unmeasurable Possibilities
Many years ago, I visited several times with a man named Edgar Jackson. Edgar was a pastor, a research scientist in behavioral pathology, and a published authority on grief. He was also a mystic and spiritual healer. Experiences that many people dismiss as nonsense were commonplace for Edgar, and he used the rigor of a... Continue Reading →
Looking In From The Outside
“We have gone from being within religion to being outside it.” - Marcel Gauchet[1] When I was in college, I took a course on the Old Testament. For the final exam, the professor asked us to explain the evolving perceptions of God through 2,000 years of Hebrew history. The question was challenging because those perceptions... Continue Reading →
Faith Part 2
The first act of bad faith is to flee what it cannot flee, to flee what it is. - Jean-Paul Sartre Faith can be dangerous. In 1997, thirty-nine members of the Heavens Gate UFO cult happily killed themselves with drug overdoses, leaving behind upbeat suicide notes on videotape. The believers were liberating their consciousnesses from their... Continue Reading →
Faith Part 1
Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off. – Soren Kierkegaard[i] One day, during a discussion about religion in a sociology class, I irritated a student. While writing on a whiteboard, with my back turned to the room, I casually mentioned there was no proof that God exists. Immediately, a voice behind me yelled out, “That’s... Continue Reading →