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Posts from the ‘Books’ Category

Dec 5

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All Joy Wants Eternity

Part of this morning’s sermon preparation involved thumbing through Charles Taylor’s magisterial work, A Secular Age. That sounds unbearably pretentious, I know—as if it is my regular practice to consult dense works of philosophy  for my weekly sermons. As soon as I finish with Taylor, I’ll get on with the rest of my weekly tour of really, really smart people who have written really, really long and impressive books that I understand perfectly, and will wonderfully and relevantly and seamlessly synthesize into an easily digestible sermon for Sunday. Sure.
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Nov 10

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Hope for a World of Lost Horizons

Nearly every Saturday afternoon/evening finds me furiously editing, rewriting, rearranging, hating and hacking out parts of a sermon manuscript that has inevitably grown rather bloated over the course of the week. The longer I do this preaching thing, the more I am convinced that short sermons are far more difficult to write than long ones! It’s relatively easy for me to ramble on (as readers of this blog are no doubt aware!); it’s much harder to keep things concise and, if necessary, to get rid of stuff that I am quite (humbly) convinced is rather eloquent,  insightful, and necessary. Such is the cross I bear. Read more

Oct 15

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“Our Idea of What a Human Being is Has Grown Oppressively Small and Dull”

I finished Marilynne Robinson’s excellent book When I Was a Child I Read Books over the course of a weekend trip to Edmonton. Amidst a wonderful collection of very stimulating essays, one in particular stood out, and I wanted to record a few of the more interesting passages here. The essay is called “The Human Spirit and the Good Society” and deals with the perennially contentious issue of human nature. What does it mean to be a human being? What, if anything is a human being for? What are our origins and our destiny? Amidst the many competing religious and secular narratives out there, and all of the possibilities these narratives open and close for us, where do we go to hear the truth about these vital questions? Which narratives do we trust to describe us to ourselves. Read more

Oct 8

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“The World is More Precious Than We Can Possibly Imagine”

Among the lectionary readings for the month of October are selections from the book of Job. Having long been fascinated by this magnificent story, I decided back in summer that October’s sermons would be oriented around Job and themes of lament, suffering, repentance, the sovereignty of God, etc. Strangely, I never really clued in to the fact that the first Sunday in October would be Thanksgiving Sunday here in Canada, and that I would thus find myself in the somewhat awkward position of starting a series on the trials of Job on a Sunday normally devoted to giving thanks to God for the blessings we enjoy! It was an interesting experience, to say the least, trying to weave together themes of gratitude and grace, pain and promise, suffering and salvation, through the stories of Job, Jesus, and all of us who ponder the mysteries of joy and pain in their shadow. Read more

Sep 26

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Indicting the Cross

Last night was spent at a local theology reading group hosted by a philosophy professor from the university in town. It’s an eclectic mix—a few professors, a chaplain (who was gracious enough to invite me!), history and philosophy students, Mormons, atheists, agnostics, and a handful of other positions on the way to or from faith, no doubt. The discussion was freewheeling, lively, and very stimulating. I spend a lot of time in “churchy” circles where I am supposed to be some kind of “authority” or, ahem, “expert.” It was nice to take that hat off for an evening and just explore some interesting questions with others. Read more

Sep 3

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To Be Continued…

This year, our family spent Labour Day weekend about an hour and a half northwest of Calgary at Camp Evergreen  where I was speaking at the camp’s fall family retreat. This was the camp I grew up attending as a boy, and it was great to see our kids get to enjoy the same activities—archery, horseback riding, and canoeing—that I enjoyed once upon a time, as well as try out a few that weren’t around way back when I was there (the zip-line and the climbing wall were highlights). Many things had changed (apparently that happens over 20+ years!), but it was still great to be back. Read more

Jul 20

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The Scratching of Itches

Regular readers of this blog will know that the subject of my masters thesis a few years ago was the rise of “The New Atheism” (the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett) and that I interpreted this phenomenon not as the inevitable triumph of scientific rationality over superstition (as many of the authors were fond of claiming) but as a form of protest atheism against the evil in the world and against a God that they expected better from.

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Jun 25

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“He’s Still Breathing On Us”

I went to the library to renew my membership card today, and as I was walking out the door I a book on the shelf caught my eye: Sara Miles’ Jesus Freak. A friend recommended Miles’ Take This Bread a while back, but I have never gotten around to reading it. But, Jesus Freak?! Well, the title alone was enough to stop me in my tracks. After reading a few pages I decided that this would be a very interesting read indeed. I just finished the first chapter, which confirmed my suspicions.

I have no reason for posting this quote other than because it accomplished the somewhat rare feat of making me smile and squirm at the same time:

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Jun 14

9 Comments

Profanity is Expensive

Interesting words to consider in light of the current global financial situation, its root causes, and its effects upon human beings…

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Our technological resourcefulness is making our life expensive and lonely.  Technology is ambiguous.  It can enrich and impoverish our life.  Technology is like fire; it can cook rice for our enjoyment and nutrition and it can also reduce our house to ashes. Read more

May 26

5 Comments

On “Moral Injury”

A few things I’ve read over the last 24 hours or so have me thinking on a quiet Saturday morning…

Yesterday, I came across a term I had never heard before via someone in the world of counselling: “moral injury.” In this case, the term was located in the context of a conversation about how to treat soldiers returning home from war, but it could obviously be used more broadly as well. Here’s how the term was being used: Read more

May 22

3 Comments

The Adolescent Squabble of Science vs. Religion

One of the books that I have been looking forward to reading for some time is Marilynne Robinson’s recent collection of essays called When I Was a Child I Read Books. Happily, a little brown package arrived in the mail today! I have enjoyed Robinson’s fiction immensely (Gilead and Home obviously come to mind), but haven’t had a chance to read her nonfiction just yet. I am very glad for the opportunity to correct this regrettable deficiency. Read more

May 21

6 Comments

How God Feels in This World

In around a month or so, it will be one year since we packed up and left Vancouver Island and returned to our roots in southern Alberta. For the entirety of this time, Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing has been sitting on or around the shelf beside my favourite reading chair.  The book was a parting gift from a dear saint in our previous church—a woman whose spirituality was thick and deep and broad, and from whom I learned a great deal over the course of my three years on the Island.  She said it was a book that had impacted her like few others. I accepted her gift with gratitude and no small amount of curiosity. Read more

May 1

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Faith Does Not Wait

I haven’t been writing much over the past week or so due mainly to the demands of settling back into “real” life after my trip to Colombia, as well as dealing with a persistent bug that seems to have followed me home from South America.  Even though being sick is no fun, there are blessings here too, for I have had found myself with much more time for reading than normal!  One of the books that I have been reading over the past week or so, as I continue to reflect upon and process what I saw and learned in Colombia, is Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination.  Here’s a quote I am mulling over today as I think about the reality of five million internally displaced people in Colombia: Read more

Mar 31

2 Comments

In Spite Of

I’ve been critical of Eric Weiner’s Man Seeks God here and there over the last little while (see here, for example), but the book does contain some memorable and insightful passages as well. One must give credit where credit is due. The themes of this quote, for example, struck me as fitting well with the words of Václav Havel in my previous post: Read more

Feb 21

4 Comments

The Life and the Light

Two services in the next six days, combined with a quick jaunt to Saskatchewan to see family in between will likely mean a rather light week on this blog. I did, however, want to throw up a quote that I came across a while back that I’ve been thinking about as we head into the season of Lent.

This past Sunday was Transfiguration Sunday where the divinity of Jesus is revealed to a handful of frightened and bewildered disciples on the top of a mountain. During Lent and Holy Week we reflect upon the simultaneously horrific, beautiful, and unexpected manner in which this divinity is expressed. Read more

Jan 20

14 Comments

The Gospel of Sin Management (Gil Dueck)

Our community is in the middle of a four-week sermon series on the nature of the gospel. We are discovering that “the gospel” is an expansive and inclusive thing—perhaps much bigger and deeper than many of us have considered it to be at various points along our journeys of faith. The gospel is good news that goes far beyond individual souls and their eternal destinies, and has implications for all of life and all of  the world.   Read more

Dec 28

6 Comments

Control Yourself!

A new year looms on the horizon and with it, thoughts of new beginnings, life changes, the sloughing off of old, destructive habits, etc, etc. If there is a practice that is more widely and enthusiastically embraced with less empirical evidence to ground its optimism than the New Year’s Resolution, I am not aware of it. Rare is the occasion when our resolve makes it past, say January 15. It’s just too difficult to control ourselves. Read more

Dec 16

23 Comments

A Labour of Vision

This morning, I read of Christopher Hitchens’ passing and felt very sad.

I did not know the man personally, of course, nor did I share many of his convictions about the world. Indeed, Hitchens spent a good deal of time and energy (articulately and entertainingly) attacking some of the things most important to me. But today’s news really hit me. It was kind of like hearing that a friend had died—or at least a distant cousin that you once stayed up late into the night having an intense conversation where you both got really worked up and ended up simply having to agree to disagree!   Read more

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