A new Facebook friend recently posted a question on my wall. She said she was enjoying praying the Jesus Prayer, but found an objection creeping up in the back of her mind: Isn’t this the kind of thing Jesus told us not to do? One of the really fun things about writing a book is […]
Two recent books mining the riches of the past
I have been distracted from posting by a couple of other books I had to read relative to other deadlines, and finally thought “Why not mention the books here?” Indeed why not? They both are relevant to the cause. The first is the English translation of part of the classic medieval biblical commentary known as […]
Kneeling with Giants
As well as introducing some guides that provide perspectives and principles for exploring great voices of the past, I want to offer some examples of works that try to make good use of them. The easiest one to find is (ahem) my own. Kneeling with Giants: Learning to Pray with History’s Best Teachers (Downers Grove: […]
On ‘the art of theological reflection’
When trying to make good use of writings that stand at a great distance from us–whether because they come from long ago or from across the boundaries of cultures, we need some guidelines, some sense of how we might go about it. We pick up a patristic theologian, say John Chrysostom, and find his style […]
What to do with a giant?
The giants should be easy to spot. I mean, hey, they are big. Maybe you heard the name of one in “Western Civilization” or “Introduction to Church History.” Their name got mentioned because they wrote something that mattered. Their words stood the test of time. Or they did something that mattered so much then that […]