Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

The Perils of Caged and Free Range Christians - Brad Jersak

 

Top news in American Christianity

 

The top news item in American Christianity over the past few years continues to be the ‘nones’ (non-affiliated) phenomenon. Is the exodus of churchgoers a blessed deliverance from bondage or a cursed wandering in the wilderness? How we see it depends on one’s perspective, experience and observations … and it’s going to warrant ongoing examination. But there’s no skirting the stubborn fact that tens of millions no longer and likely will never return to the institutional church as they knew it.

 

For my part, I note that both churchgoers and nones can get pretty defensive and contemptuous of the other. That’s an instinctive response when we feel judged, however unproductive. Perhaps a better starting point would be an examination and admission that both paths have their challenges, and most especially when judging another’s journey obscures one’s own blind spots. So let’s take Paul’s words to heart:

“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4 ESV).

Indeed, I propose that passing judgment on others rather than being mindful of my own steps creates conditions as perilous to faith as the life of a chicken, whether caged or free range!

What does the writing of dialogue add to the theology of love? - Essay by Jessica Scott

The writing of dialogue has at its heart a conflict. At first glance, writing is what dialogue is not and to see the two come together is to encounter a kind of negation.1 In one direction, the instability of speech seems to become fixed in a text. In another, a text’s stability is rendered contingent, made my own fleeting and improvised expression as it becomes spoken. Located at this conflicted periphery, written dialogue diverges from the conventions of language in important ways.

In this article, I shall focus on one divergence: the departure from the assumptions underlying ‘subject-verb-object’ structure towards a dynamic of reciprocity in which the speaker is both active and passive, both giver and recipient. This concept of reciprocity is generative for our theology in its bringing to bear a love which is at once engaged in all that we do here and now, in our contingent finitude, yet also in its endlessness is attached, necessarily, to infinity. In the Christian tradition, the kind of reciprocity we are presented with in written dialogue recalls the strangeness of Christ’s love, in which those facets of infinitude and finitude are ultimately resolved as one.

Download Jessica Scott, Dialogue

Jessica studied Theology at King’s College, Cambridge, before moving to East London to live in a lay community attached to a Church of England parish, and to research theology for the international development agency Christian Aid.

The End of Just War: Why Christian Realism Requires Nonviolence Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke University.

Pacifists always bear the burden of proof. They do so because, as attractive as nonviolence may be, most assume that pacifism just will not work.

You may want to keep a few pacifists around for reminding those burdened with running the world that what they sometimes have to do is a lesser evil, but pacifism simply cannot and should not be, even for Christians, a normative stance.

Nonviolence is assumed to be unworkable, or, to the extent it works at all, it does so only because it is parasitic on more determinative forms of order secured by violence. Those committed to nonviolence, in short, are not realistic.

In contrast to pacifism, it is often assumed that just war reflection is "realistic." It is by no means clear, however, if advocates of just war have provided an adequate account of what kind of conditions are necessary for just war to be a realistic alternative for the military policy of a nation.

Just war in the Christian tradition

In the Christian tradition, realism is often thought to have begun with Augustine's account of the two cities, hardened into doctrine with Luther's two kingdoms, and given its most distinctive formulation in the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Thus Augustine is often identified as the Christian theologian who set the stage for the development of just war reflection that enables Christians to use violence in a limited way to secure tolerable order.

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Bono & Eugene Peterson: The Psalms

Most readers will have seen this posted everywhere, but if you haven't take the time to watch it through, it really is a good reminder that many of the Psalms were far more honest than they were liturgical (unless the two can be one!) ... they cry out re: our violent world and our violent hearts, but they also escort us to the Great Physician of Grace.

Alexandrian Christianity: Then and Now - Ron Dart

Alexandrian Christianity: Then and Now

New Camaldoli Hermitage: Big Sur

 

   I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

   For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without

             Love

   For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

   But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

   Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

   So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the

             dancing.  

                              

--T.S. Eliot, “East Coker” Four Quartets

The earliest forms of Christianity emerged from the matrix of the Jewish Tradition, but Christianity, within a generation, encountered the Classical world. The much larger and more cosmopolitan ethos of Classical thought and culture was neither rooted nor grounded in Jewish religious thought, but such a civilization was deeply spiritual and religious. This meant that when Christians encountered the Classical world, they could not appeal to Jewish thought (which was largely foreign to such a civilization). The journey, then, of Christianity from Jerusalem and Palestine outside such an enclosed form of religion meant Christians had to speak their faith to a form of religion that was deeply contemplative, spiritual and religious but not Jewish.

Alexandria was, in the first few centuries of the Common Era, noted for its diverse cultures, pluralistic religions and crossroads where different forms of spirituality met one another. Alexandria had one of the largest libraries in the ancient world, one of the fullest diasporic Jewish communities (the Septuagint and Philo called this creative place home) and it was a vibrant centre in which Stoicism, mystery religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism, Egyptian cults, middle Platonism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Yoga, Gnosticism, early forms of Christian desert spirituality and Christian thought and culture encountered one another on a daily basis.

In fact, Alexandria was one of the most vibrant centres and cities of Christianity from the 2nd to the 5^th centuries of the Common Era. Pantaenus (120-200), Clement (150-215) and Origen (184-254) embodied, in their life and writings, a form of contemplative theology and philosophy that embraced the finest and most probing insights of the wisdom traditions of the East in their deeply meditative forms of Christianity. This was not a Tertullian’s “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, What has the Academy to do with the Church?” form of Christianity. Alexandrian Christianity was much more about contemplative Christians finding those points of concord and dialogue between Christianity and the “logos spermatikos” in the best of all religions and spiritual philosophic traditions.

Apocatastasis - Poem by Phillip Sherard

The sin my father sinned is mine;
the sin my mother sinned is mine;
so it is since the world began,
so will it be till the world ends.

I am Adam, I am Eve,
in me there grows the wicked tree,
through me the glittering serpent climbs,
my teeth break the apple’s rind.

My forehead bears the brand of Cain,
Abel bleeds within my blood;
I am the killer and the killed,
I am the hunted and I hunt.

Yet in me too the woman’s seed
crushes the serpent’s ugly head,
roots up the black denying tree,
plants a fresh garden in the wild.

And Cain’s brand dissolves in dew,
And Abel’s wound is healed at last;
killer, victim, now embrace,
hunted, hunter are at peace.

And upon great Adam’s breast
sighs the soft repentant Eve;
and naked go the beasts of love
among the green cool apple trees.

God: Infinite Love without Remainder - Brad Jersak (audio / ppt)

What is God like? (1 John 4, Eph. 3)

God as infinite love without remainder as revealed in Christ, esp. on the Cross.

Audio (mp3) to be viewed with slides: 

God is love

Slides (powerpoint): Download PPT of God - Infinite love without remainder 

Slides (pdf): Download PDF of God - Infinite love without remainder 
 

Stanley Spencer's ‘The Resurrection, Cookham’ - A Theological Commentary by Jessica Scott

“The Resurrection, Cookham”, in its presentation of an eschatology which begins in the here and now, embeds a message which speaks of our world and our present as intimately bound with God for eternity. This conception of an eternal, connecting relationship between Creator and creation begins in Spencer’s vision of the world, which leads him to a view of God, which in turn brings him back to himself. What emerges as of ultimate significance is God’s giving of God’s self.

Truth sees God, wisdom beholds God,

and from these two comes a third,

a holy wondering delight in God,

which is love[1]

It seems that Julian of Norwich’s words speak prophetically of Spencer’s artistic journey - a journey which moves from seeing, to beholding, to joy. Both express love as the essential message of their work. Julian understood her visions as making clear that for God ‘love was his meaning’. Spencer, meanwhile, described his artistic endeavour as invigorated by love, as art’s ‘essential power’. This love, for both, informs the whole of life. God, in light of the power of love, cannot be angry. Julian conceived of sin as something for which God would not blame us. Likewise, Spencer’s Day of Judgement is lacking in judgement. Humanity, in light of the power of love, should not despise itself, not even the bodily self so frequently derided. This love of self finds expression in Julian’s language – she uses ‘sensuality’ when referring to the body.[2] Rather than compartmentalising flesh in disregard for it, she describes it as ‘always grounded in God’.[3] Spencer’s work similarly conveys a sense of the self as whole, thus as wholly loveable. He sees himself not as consisting of fragmented components, but one: his body is as much himself as his soul, his sexuality is as crucial as his intellect. This love of Julian and Spencer’s, which overwhelms the sight of God and of the self, makes for a distinctive character in their theologies. Neither is defensive. Both are experimental, uninhibited by convention and even playful.[4] This simple power of love, evident within the work of both, makes Julian’s written words an insightful framework for reading Spencer’s visual image.

Beginning with truth seeing God, I will examine Spencer’s distinctive seeing of the sacred within the ordinary, his being attuned to a unified world in which God is not separated from humanity. From the presence of God that Spencer’s truth sees, I will turn to his wisdom in beholding God. In wisdome God’s ubiquity and hence God’s intimate closeness is held simultaneously with the grace facilitating that closeness, a grace so abundant that its giver is rendered infinitely beyond our understanding. Wisdom beholds immanence together with transcendence. Following this, I will turn to observe Julian’s sense of a holy wondering delight as expressed in Spencer’s piece: the joy which ensues from finding oneself resting in the perfect unity of nearness and otherness - a joy evident in the exultancy of this Cookham scene. Finally, I will assert the essential power which is love, as encountered in each movement where God and humanity are unified -- seeing, beholding, and wondering delight.

 

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Jessica studied Theology at King’s College, Cambridge, before moving to East London to live in a lay community attached to a Church of England parish, and to research theology for the international development agency Christian Aid.

 

 

Notes:

[1] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 44. (Ed.) Glasscoe, M. (1981), (Exeter, University of Exeter Press).

[2] Noted by Jantzen, A. M.(2000),‘Julian of Norwich’ in Hastings, A. The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, (Oxford,Oxford University Press), 358.

[3] Ibid.

[4] It is striking, for instance, that both allow themselves to conceive of God as female: they are creative and unreserved.

 

 

 

 

"Going to the Dogs" (Matt. 15:21-28) - by Greg Albrecht

The Canaanite Woman - by Sadao Watanabe

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly." Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.  He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs." "Yes it is, Lord," she said. "Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Then Jesus said to her, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed at that moment.—Matthew 15:21-28

This woman was desperate! She may have already taken her daughter to the Canaanite priests and exorcists—our passage doesn't tell us. But we do know that this woman apparently had nowhere else to turn, because this was an extreme act on her part. She, as a woman, was so frantic to secure help for her daughter that she dared to speak to a man in public. More than that, as a Canaanite, this woman was a member of an ethnic group who were the despised, mortal enemies of the Jews. But in spite of the fact that Jesus and his disciples were Jews, she audaciously and brazenly spoke to a man she didn't know, in public. 

 

Now we know the end of this story, don't we? We know that God promises, throughout the Bible, that he loves us and that he will take care of us. Jesus himself, a few chapters earlier in this very same book of Matthew rhetorically asks us that if we, as parents, know how to give good gifts to our children, don't we realize that our heavenly Father will give us, his children, good gifts? (Matthew 7:11). He explained that if we ask God for bread he won't give us something inedible and impossible to eat—like a stone (Matthew 7:9). God is not playing some cruel game with us, he won't give us a snake when we ask for a fish (Matthew 7:10). 

 

So with the benefit of hindsight, based on all that God has revealed to us of himself in the Gospels, and the entire Bible for that matter, we can be certain that Jesus, God in the flesh, loved this Canaanite woman. But when he first started talking to her it sure didn't seem like he liked her! 

 

This woman approached Jesus and cried: "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!" (verse 22). The Canaanite woman wasn't a Jew, but she apparently knew enough about Jesus to know that he was a healer, and she was desperate —she was willing to try anything. She was a woman and a Canaanite, so she had to feel extremely awkward in a group with a bunch of male Jews. She was definitely a minority, and definitely defying social conventions. Her request was for mercy. Mercy! 

 

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WTC Pub Night Interview: Matt Lynch, Lucy Peppiatt with Brad Jersak

"A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel" - WTC Pub Night Interview of Brad Jersak by Matthew Lynch and Lucy Peppiatt 

This episode of WTCLive comes to you from the student pub at WTC’s student residential (January 2016). Lucy Peppiatt and Matt Lynch discuss Brad’s recent book A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel (Plain Truth Ministries, 2015). Brad explains his journey toward writing this book, and how his perspective developed. Hear Matt, Lucy and Brad in a fun and lively discussion about Brad’s book. 

http://wtctheology.org.uk/2016/04/11/christlike-god-beautiful-gospel/

A Game Changer on Hell? George Sarris (response by Brad Jersak)

Robin Parry - Four Views of Hell

Until now, most Christians have assumed that evangelicals – people who base their convictions clearly on the teaching of Scripture – cannot possibly be universalists – people who believe that God will one day redeem all mankind.

With the release on March 8 of Zondervan’s Four Views on Hell (Second Edition), that understanding suddenly changed!

For the first time, a well respected, evangelical publishing house has clearly acknowledged that universalism is a view Christians should seriously consider.

An Evangelical Universalist

The four views presented in the book are: Eternal Conscious Torment, Terminal Punishment, Purgatory, and an essay by Robin Parry on Christian Universalism.

According to the book’s general editor, Preston Sprinkle –

All of the authors are committed Christians who believe in the full inspiration and authority of the Bible . . . All of the authors will derive and articulate their views based on Scripture and theological reasoning. 

Dr. Sprinkle goes on to say –

I found Robin Parry’s essay to be a fascinating read! And, if I can be quite honest, I think it is a game-changer . . . Christians can no longer dismiss his view as unorthodox. We must now actually crack open our Bibles and, like the Bereans (Acts 17:11), see if these things are so.

CLICK HERE to continue reading 'A Game-Changer?'

 

Response by Brad Jersak

While 'Christian Universalism' and indeed a truly 'Evangelical Universalism' is as old as St Gregory of Nyssa and as rich as Rev. George MacDonald, it has often required some key leader, popular denomination or established publishing company to formalize broader acceptance of any controversial doctrine, practice or people. Who has the courage of St Peter to come along and say, 'Like it or not, 'they' (whoever they happen to be) DO have a legitimate place at this table'?  

Vatican to Re-examine 'Just War' - Joshua J. McElwee

The Vatican will be hosting a first of its kind conference next week to reexamine the Catholic church's long-held teachings on just war theory, bringing some 80 experts engaged in global nonviolent struggles to Rome with the aim of developing a new moral framework that rejects ethical justifications for war.

Participants say the conference -- to be co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the global Catholic peace network Pax Christi International April 11-13 -- may recommend displacing the centuries-old just war theory as the main Catholic response to violence.

They also express hope that Pope Francis might take up their conversations by deciding to focus his next encyclical letter, the highest form of teaching for a pontiff, on issues of Catholic peacemaking.

Terrence Rynne, a U.S. theologian who will be attending the event, said he considers it "phenomenally important."

"Coming out of it, Pope Francis might see his way clear to articulate a fresh vision of peacemaking to the church," said Rynne, who helped found Marquette University's Center for Peacemaking. "That would be wonderful."

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What has Easter to do with Politics? Ron Dart

What has Easter to do with politics? What has the church to do with the state? What has the sacred to do with the secular? What has justice and peace to do with empires? What has Canada to do with the USA?

The Christian understanding of Easter has its roots in the Jewish tradition of Passover. There is, sadly so, a tendency to reduce the Jewish meaning of Passover to all sorts of rites and ceremonies, and, in the process, miss the deeper and more demanding meaning of Passover.

The Jewish tradition of Passover emerged from a clash, within Jewish history, between the Jews (an oppressed people) and the Egyptian empire. Pharaoh (the leader of the Egyptian empire) treated the Jews as cheap labour and mules. They were hewers of wood and drawers of water for the affluent Egyptian middle and upper class. The clash between Moses (who stood for the oppressed Jews) and Pharaoh is now part and parcel of western lore and legend, fact and feelings. Passover, at core and centre, was about an oppressed nation seeking and finding liberation from an imperial and unjust overlord.

Jesus, being Jewish, was steeped and saturated in such a memory. He lived at a time when the Jews were oppressed by the Romans. The script was the same. The actors were different. Once it was the Egyptians. For Jesus, it was the Romans. The Jews were still an oppressed people seeking national liberation. Jesus came preaching notions of the Kingdom and justice/peace.

The Beatitudes sum up his disturbing vision of the Kingdom quite well. Such a life and such insights did not please the power elites. Things did not bode well for Jesus. The Romans were not pleased. The Jewish leadership (Sanhedrin) was on the same page as the Romans. In fact, most had bent the dutiful knee to Roman power.

The Christian notion of Easter was formed and forged on the political anvil of the Jewish liberation from Egypt. Jesus sought to liberate both the Jews and Gentiles from Roman oppression. The Romans knew what Jesus was doing and why. They only put two types of people on the cross: common criminals and political subversives. Jesus, like Moses, was seen as a threat to the empire.

We, in the West, have tended to privatize, domesticate and sanitize the political meaning of Passover and Easter. It is now a rather quaint and nostalgic event with little political clout. In fact, both Passover and Easter have become rather harmless events in the liturgical life of the church. But, was this always so? Moses and Jesus would be rather shocked by the way such an event has been privatized and depoliticized.

Moses confronted the Egyptian empire. Jesus confronted the Roman Empire. Both men confronted the empires of their time. It is rather ironic that many Christians today bow and genuflect before an empire greater than Egypt and Rome. It is even more ironic that this is done in the name of being conservative.

The historic Canadian conservative tradition from Bishops Charles Inglis and John Strachan to Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker to Suzanna Moody and Mazo de la Roche to Stephen Leacock and George Grant have been wary of the American empire. Such an empire is not much different from Egypt and Rome. Passover and Easter, in their beginnings, were political events. Can we imagine Canadians seeing Easter as an event about liberating Canada from the USA? Hardly!

This does speak volumes about how many Canadians have become tamed. The high point in the Christian calendar (Easter) has become, in many ways, a safe and innocuous event that has little to do with its political origins.

Is Easter ever likely to become a substantive political event? Not likely! The myth and ritual are now safe, domesticated and sanitized, But, for those with some memory, they know there is more to the event, and they cannot but feel the loss and lack.

Ron Dart          

The Jewish Prophets - Noam Chomsky

From an interview with Noam Chomsky. 
(http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/indicting-the-system-with-noam-chomsky/):

If you take a look at the Bible, there is a class of people who are called prophets. Bad translation of an obscure Hebrew word. They were basically critical intellectuals. They were condemning the crimes of the King, the evil King, doing geopolitical critique, calling for mercy and justice for widows and orphans. What happened to them? They were jailed, they were driven into the desert, they were bitterly condemned, and then centuries later they were honored, not at the time. People who were honored at the time were the flatterers of the court, centuries later called false prophets. That model goes right back through history with very rare exceptions.

SINGER SONGWRITER CATHY AJ HARDY RELEASES NEW INSPIRATIONAL ALBUM

Cathy AJ Hardy, deeply connected to the land of the Fraser Valley of BC, releasing her much-anticipated 5^th album, And I Heard the Sound of Laughter – Songs of the Divine Embrace. Cathy’s voice leads the listener into an experience of soulfulness, healing and inspiration. This recording features 11 original songs expressing Cathy’s soul journey as well as songs for the collective voice, inspired by the music of Iona and Taize. Cathy’s previous recordings have been nominated for several Gospel Music Awards and all albums have been produced by

This recording features 11 original songs expressing Cathy’s soul journey as well as songs for the collective voice, inspired by the music of Iona and Taize. Cathy’s previous recordings have been nominated for several Gospel Music Awards and all albums have been produced by award-winning producer, Philip Janz.

“Cathy Hardy’s new release ‘And I Heard the Sound of Laughter’ is part autobiography, part worship and part confession. It’s a beautiful musical story of Divine Love finding her, and her finding Divine Love in the most innocuous and commonplace pleasures: laughter. The songs rise and fall from exuberant exultation to quiet, meditative reflection. The purity of her voice and Phil Janz’s sympathetic production yield us a sonic and spiritual pleasure that is engaging and refreshing.”

Roy Salmond, Producer & GMA Lifetime Achievement Award 2015 Recipient

“Cathy's new album marks a new breadth, length, height and depth to her creative vision that I believe reflects and amplifies her experience of Christ's love for her and for us all. “

Brad Jersak, Author ‘A More Christlike God’

Available immediately: www.cathyajhardy.com/   https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/cathyajhardy15/

And ITUNES, Amazon.com, House of James (Abbotsford)

For more information contact: Cathy AJ Hardy

[email protected] / www.cathyajhardy.com 604-814-0199/ 604-302-9937

After Easter: Is Death Now Our Friend? Brad Jersak

Question: 

I read that because of Easter, death can now be our friend. What do you think? Here is the actual statement:

"Easter is God’s 'victory over death.'  Death is no longer the curse that it was.  It is no longer the power that rules.  It is no longer the enemy to be feared.  But here’s the twist.  In doing so, Jesus also reclaims death and befriends it – not death in its perverted form, but death in its state of grace. Jesus reclaims death as a natural blessing to the rhythm of life and shows us that it is possible to befriend it."

Woman grieving after death of 70+ in Pakistan

Response: 

My first reaction to this quote is that while it sounds wonderful, perhaps the author wrote it from a great distance to those who have recently experienced death as an enemy ... and should maintain that distance for the time being. But before being immediately dismissive, let's have another look at Easter, death and dying.  

What is death, in fact? I am working to free my mind from previous definitions and assumptions, in order to see a fundamental shift in the nature of death as a result of Christ's work. In light of 1 Cor. 15:26, I'm not ready to call death a friend yet, but how might the statement be true? Three points bear considering. 

1. How has our relationship to death been altered as a result of Resurrection Sunday? I need not move from enmity to friendship with death in order to make the basis NT assertion that death has apparently lost its sting (which is not to say, its grief ... a different issue). Death's sting was that either we 'were no more' or that we were consigned to the gloom of sheol/hades. Death's sting is the fear or death-anxiety common to humanity. Through our death-anxiety, the devil held us in bondage and it is that fear of death and subsequent demonic bondage from which Christ has freed us. Heb. 2:14-15 (and maybe Jn. 14:1-6). 

If death is an enemy, it is no longer an enemy I need fear. This suggests to me that perhaps death in the NT is not synonymous with the cause of death, the experience of dying, the moment of death or the grievous aftermath for the survivors. All of these remain most unwelcome, in want of God's compassion, comfort and/or healing. 

Rather, in the NT death per se relates to the destiny of those who are dead. That is, death and 'the grave' were synonymous, used in tandem in the same manner of Hebrew parallelism. If so, then Christ has not only changed my relationship to death but fundamentally changed the nature of death itself. Thus...

Review of Andrew G. Walker, "Notes from a Wayward Son" -- by Ron Dart

Andrew J. Walker, “Notes from a Wayward Son: a miscellany," Andrew D. Kinsey (ed.)” (Cascade Books: Eugene, Oregon, 2015).

Andrew Walker is one of the most remarkable scholars I have met across the years. – William J. Abraham

There are thinkers, to follow Berlin’s lead, like the fox—they cover a vast amount of terrain in their intellectual breadth. There are other thinkers, like the hedgehog—they burrow deep and narrow. Andrew Walker is both a fox and hedgehog in both his sheer breadth and pathway depths in Notes from a Wayward Son: a miscellany—we could certainly profit and mature from more wayward sons (and daughters) of Walker’s calibre.

Notes from a Wayward Son is divided into five probing and insightful chapters. Part I: “Journey into the Spirit: Pentecostalism, Charismatic, and Restorationist Christianity” is an informed and historic overview, from a sociological perspective, of various themes and strands of self-styled renewal Christianity. Walker never flinches from asking hard questions about such approaches to Christianity. The fact that Walker spent significant seasons of his life within such a Christian tribe means his burrowing reveals much that many are simply unaware of---almost 1/3 of Notes from a Wayward Son does the hedgehog deed into the complex ethos of those who claim to be journeying into the spirit (always a question, of course, about whose version of the spirit and which spirit).

Review of 'Thomas Merton & the Counterculture' by Joy Steem & Matthew Steem

Doesn't it often seem that people and ideas we most respect usually contain a certain amount of breadth? And to be clear, breadth is not merely a large dose of variety. Perhaps it is a deepness incorporated into breadth that makes breadth comprehensive. Truth has often been described as light; and, as most of us can appreciate, some people seem to see more of the spectrum as it were, and thus ascertain more “truth.”

Breadthy or comprehensive people seem to be the ones who can see that larger spectrum: they can see more of the colours. Thomas Merton, most of his readers would happily attest, was just one such of these breadthy individuals. But more than that, he was able to express what he saw in ways that allowed for his readers to share in this expanded – enlightened? – view. Thus, when imbibed of, Merton the prophet also provides us with more than the diagnosis, but also, in part a cure.