Our situation of "knowing God" is thus similar to that of a baby being held by its mother. In her hands, the baby does not "understand" the mother but rather experiences being known by the mother. In the same way, the revelation of God we have received from God is not...
Jesus beatifies mourning, not moping. He does not counsel the long face. He does, however, bless real sadness, a state that can as easily coexist with an outwardly happy life as do all the other normal contradictions of living. (The deepest joy may reside in persons...
Near the end of his [Jesus'] life, he struggles with a complete embrace of his mission. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me," he says, hoping that perhaps suffering is not what God intends (Matthew 26:39). But somehow he realizes, through prayer and...
It would be hard to deny that contemporary British (and most Western) Christianity is in an advanced state of syncretism. The church has lived so long as a permitted and even privileged minority, accepting regulation to the private sphere in a culture whose public...
We can either stay within the Christianity we have mastered with the Jesus we have domesticated, or we can leave Christianity as a destination, embrace Christianity...as a way of life, and then journey to reality, where God is present and living in every person, every...
For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience. Since, then, we cannot adequately speak of obedience as the consequence of faith, and since we must never forget the indissoluble unity of the two, we...
If we were to accept large areas of life as pure gift, we would be forced to acknowledge that we are not in control. Were we to live as recipients rather than makers, we might feel dependent and diminished, like clients of some cosmic welfare system that demeans our...
There is a tendency in the West to absolutize our religion. Instead of viewing it as a road sign that points beyond itself, we consider it a stop sign. It becomes the destination, the end. When that happens it becomes confused with the Ultimate Reality that is always...
A man must have a sense of being cared for, of not being alone and stranded in the universe. All of us want the assurance of not being deserted by life nor deserted in life. Faith teaches us that God is--that He is the fact of life from which all other things take...
The goal of God's act of grace in Christ is therefore unity among his creatures, a unity which, as this whole discussion has shown, is to become reality in the present in the community of those who acknowledge God's gracious lordship in Christ. If the universal scope...