...trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus...the Lord out of dust had created him, had made him blood and nerve and mind, had made him to bleed and weep and think, and set him in a world of loss and fire... --Flannery O'Connor
"Blodeleshede and peyne dryden within and blowyng of wynde and cold" In Chapter 16 Julian reaches her eighth showing, her vision of the death of Jesus on the cross. Julian will dwell upon this showing through Chapter 21. So buckle up! In Chapter 16 Julian describes Jesus' body bleeding out, thereby discoloring the body. The almost total loss of blood causes the body of Christ to dry up and…
In yesterday's post I described how, in The Book of Love , I wanted to bring some readers into "hermeneutical self-awareness." That everyone has a hermeneutical posture toward Scripture should be obvious (few of us agree about how to read the Bible), but it's scary to admit this. If you recognize that you are interpreting the Bible, you're hit with the very next question: How do you know if your…
In the Introduction to The Book of Love I describe how I wanted to write a book that would surprise both conservative and progressive readers of the Bible. As you might expect, that was not an easy task! Here's how I described our situation: Our problem is that we read the Bible from within our echo chambers. We are no longer surprised by Scripture. And books about how to read the Bible preach to…
I recently shared how I attempted to use Blaise Pascal's strategy to "warm, not instruct" in writing The Book of Love . That idea of "warming" to a reading of Scripture is something I describe in The Book of Love in reference to a related idea described by William James: The philosopher William James once described how ideas and beliefs can feel either hot or cold to us, as either alive or dead.…
Were you not told? "Do not run." That care with these sharps was needful? The Lord's name is a razor. His Word, a blade. Lethal, a twitch with this scalpel. The margins too slight for the clumsy well-meaning or the ignorant zeal. Do you not see the bleeding and the scarred? Or behold the corpses in the overflowing morgue? O mortal, beware to cut. Pray for the fevered, sickly souls. That they might…
"He kepyth us even alike sekir in wo and in wele...both is one love" In Chapter 15 Julian shares her seventh showing. In this showing Julian experiences her soul moving back and forth between consolation and desolation. Twenty times this happens, as she numbers them. And the point of the showing is that God holds the soul in love no matter its season and state. It's a lovely and profound…
Out at the prison we were looking at Jesus’ exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac in the Gospel of Mark. The first thing we noted is how the demonic possession manifested: This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue…
Gratitude is consistently correlated with greater well-being in the psychological literature. As I describe in The Shape of Joy , people who cultivate gratitude tend to experience lower levels of anxiety and depression, greater emotional resilience, and a deeper sense of meaning in life. Much of this research focuses upon interpersonal gratitude. We thank people. We recognize the gifts given to us…
In 2023, I shared six online reflections in a series exploring the theology of Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944). I’m pulling those posts together here in a single, summative essay. As I mentioned in that original series, Bulgakov’s theology—specifically what is called sophiology —can feel strange. This stream of Christian thought will be foreign to many readers. But I encourage you to push past that…
There's a clip from an interview with the musician and author Nick Cave about the contrast he sees between religion and spirituality. Cave is asked the question: "You talk about a very definite difference between being spiritual and being religious." Cave's response: "You know, I think religion asks something of us, it asks something of us. And spirituality is a little bit more amorphous. And we…
"I saw Him rialy regne in His hous, and fulfillid it with joy and mirth" In Chapter 14 Julian shares her sixth showing: And in this myn understondyng was lifted up into Hevyn, where I saw our Lord as a lord in his owne house, which hath clepid al his derworthy servants and freinds to a solemne feste. Than I saw the Lord take no place in His owne house, but I saw Him rialy regne in His hous, and…
I was revisiting my 2024 reflections on the parables of Matthew 13. Specifically related to something I share in The Book of Love regarding the kingdom of God being a “narrow way” that only a “few” find. What follows is a summary of those 2024 posts. We tend to assume that Jesus’ parables are folksy stories meant to make spiritual truths more accessible. But Jesus explicitly suggests that the…
There is a line I love from Psalm 56 : "You have collected all my tears in your bottle." Whenever I think of this imagery—God as Collector of Tears—I'm put in mind of the psycho-spirituality of tears that I described in Unclean In Unclean I share the reflections of the Puritan leader Cotton Mather , who was urinating outside when a dog came up, lifted his leg, and urinated alongside him. Mather…
There is a famous line from the Pensées of Blaise Pascal: " The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things." As Pascal goes on to elaborate, faith is primarily about love than intellect. God makes His appeal to the heart, rather than toward the mind. Thus, when we fall in love the heart "has its reasons" of which "reason does not know." As Pascal goes on to…
I recently finished reading Max Hastings’ book about the Vietnam War, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945–1975 . Highly recommended as a single-volume summary of the war, militarily and politically, from both the American and Vietnamese perspectives. Last week I described the relationship between neurosis and nationalism. That is to say, how nationalism and patriotism serve our needs for self-esteem.…
"But in God may be no wreth, as to my syte." We're going to stay in Chapter 13 this week because, in the middle of Julian describing how the Fiend (the Devil) is overcome and how God scorns the Fiend, she shares one of her most famous insights: "But in God may be no wreth, as to my syte." Translation: "But in God may be no wrath, as to my sight." Here in Chapter 13, Julian makes her first mention…
One of the things we consistently fail to recognize about nationalism is how deeply it is tied to self-esteem. There is a neurotic aspect to nationalism. This is why slogans like “make America great again” are so potent and intoxicating. “Make America great again” is fundamentally about reclaiming a lost or elusive dignity. For most of human history, our sense of worth was tied to thick, inherited…
Whenever you write a book during the rollout you start to hit upon better and better ways to describe some of its central and animating ideas. Conversation and questions hone the argument. One of the questions I've been asked to address since the publication of The Book of Love is how progressive readers of Scripture tend to "pick and choose" their way around the more difficult passages in the…
I recently read Gavin Ortlund’s book What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church . If you are “very online,” you likely know that Protestantism tends to be a punching bag for Catholic and Orthodox apologists, many of whom are recent (and toxic) converts. Much of the theological discourse surrounding Protestantism has laid the blame for all sorts of modern ailments at…
As many people know, for the first thousand years of church history the dominant soteriological framework was Christus Victor. To be sure, forensic and substitutionary perspectives regarding atonement were always present, so the shift was one of emphasis. Still, what caused this shift? Gustaf Aulén, in his seminal work, argued that Christus Victor depended upon a metaphysical imagination that…
"Herewith is the fend overcome." In Chapter 13 of Julian's Revelations we reach her fifth showing, Satan overcome by the blood of Christ. Julian calls Satan "the Fiend," and due to the blood of Christ she hears God declare: "Herewith is the fend overcome." Herewith, the Fiend is overcome. And while the Fiend continues to show malice toward God and His works, God is unmoved and scornful toward…
I was visiting with one of our majors yesterday, and the conversation turned toward Christology and Jesus' agony in the garden. How are we to make sense of what is happening in that moment when Jesus prays to the Father, "Not my will, but yours"? If Jesus was fully God, was the will of the Son, as the Second Person of the Trinity, opposed to or in conflict with the will of the Father? According to…
The epigraph of my book The Authenticity of Faith , from which the title of the book comes, is a quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel: It has long been known that need and desire play a part in the shaping of beliefs. But is it true, as modern psychology often claims, that our religious beliefs are nothing but attempts to satisfy subconscious wishes? That the conception of God is merely a projection…
I've started reading Jordan Hillebert book Henri de Lubac and the Drama of Human Existence . As I've written about before, de Lubac's work on the relationship between nature and grace has been important for many of my reflections, specifically his contention that humans have a natural desire for a supernatural end. What struck me in Hillebert's introduction to the book was how similar de Lubac's…
Longtime readers will know that I have a particular devotion to Thérèse of Lisieux. Encountering Thérèse's Little Way was a decisive moment in my spiritual journey. Many describe the Little Way as a practice of humility, but I disagree. In Stranger God I illustrate how the Little Way is a practice of love. A key reason why I describe the Little Way as a practice of love comes from the mystical…