Courage! Howard Westwood’s 1939 Lenten Manual uses outdated, high-flown language, is written in the mode of all-men-all-of-the-time, and mentions several, mostly-forgotten dead people. Still, his exercises and meditations are worth a look. Besides, Lent isn’t supposed to be easy. So, as Westwood might say, abandon your safe haven and sail into the high seas of [...]
Archive for the ‘Theology’ Category
#45 Take to the sea for four days of Lent
Posted in God, Prayer, Spiritual Exercises, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Howard Westwood, Lenten Manual on February 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
#44 Her Nakedness passes her Ph.D. comps!
Posted in God, Spiritual Exercises, Theology, tagged Howard Westwood, Lenten Manual on February 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Phew. Comps are over! Now onward to the dissertation proposal. A Ph.D. student’s work is never done–or so it seems. The season of Lent has begun. Whether or not you spent last Wednesday with a sooty cross on your forehead, you may be wondering how to participate in this season. Horace Westwood’s 1939 Lenten Manual [...]
#43 Countdown to exams, gotta go go go
Posted in God, Prayer, Religion, Theology, tagged A. Powell Davies on December 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
It hardly seems possible, but a full year has passed since my first post! Forty-two posts later, the time has come for me to set blogging aside. With Ph.D. exams scheduled for February, 2010, I must focus on my studies and nothing but my studies. When I launched this blog, little did I expect the [...]
#38 Multifaith squabble–over love!
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Religions, Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged Multifaith dialogue, Papal encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI, Thomas Aquinas, Thomism on October 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
If you imagine that multifaith dialogue is easy, this post will change your mind. Continue reading but be warned that you’ll be asked to tease out the intricacies of an argument between the University of Chicago historian, David Nirenberg, a champion of secularism, and His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, the champion par excellence of Roman [...]
#36 The luminous gospel of transcendental universalism
Posted in God, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theology, tagged Emersonian transcendentalism, Forrest Church, universalism on October 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The Reverend Forrest Church died of esophageal cancer last week at the much-too-young age of 61. His life story continues to speak to us. Church began his ministerial career preaching the gospel of rational belief—the kind of gospel that limits itself to teachings the human mind can comprehend and experience can confirm. He surveyed the [...]
#35 The art of forgiving God
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theology, tagged atonement, forgiveness, sins of commission, sins of omission, Yom Kippur on October 4, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Yom Kippur just passed, that Jewish day of atonement and of human-granted and God-granted forgiveness. But what about God’s atonement for God’s sins of omission and of commission? After all, many of us hold God responsible for the tragedies that plague our world. “Look God,” we might say, “Take a good look around will You? [...]
#34 Blah blah blah: help or hindrance?
Posted in Philosophy of Religions, Religious Philosophy, Theology, tagged commonalities, dialogue, differences, Martin Buber, monologue on September 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It’s common wisdom that religion is NEVER, EVER a topic of polite conversation. Talking about religious views supposedly leads to arguments, so if one wishes to avoid the risk of a friendship-ending conflict, one should keep mum. We are trained at near Pavlovian levels; if our interlocutor has the bad grace to bring up religion, [...]
#33 Theology: it’s all about conversation
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religion, Theology, tagged circular thinking, empirical theology, Karen Armstrong, Paul Tillich on September 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The work of Paul Tillich (1886-1965), who is considered by many to be the leading Protestant theologian of the 20th century, offers an intriguing perspective on the God-musings of religion-scholar Karen Armstrong (see Post #32). If nothing else, taking a look at Karen Armstrong’s views from the perspective of his work reminds us that theology [...]
#32 The wait for God is over
Posted in God, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged existence, history of God, Karen Armstrong, reality on September 9, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Like many of us, the religion-scholar and popular author, Karen Armstrong, spent decades waiting for God. Raised a Roman Catholic, God remained a shadowy figure even as she sat through countless sermons and countless catechism classes. God, described to her in abstract terms, meant little to her. God existed—of this, Armstrong was certain, at least [...]
#30 Deists of the world, unite!
Posted in God, Philosophy of Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology, tagged deism, Supreme Being, Voltaire, worship on July 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Deist, deist, theist—say those words in Jersey (pronounced Joy-zie) and they all sound the same. Fortunately, spelling will help us keep tabs on which is which. Besides spelling, there are important differences. Of note: Deists (capital D) went the way of the dodo bird and deists (lowercase d) are rarer than diamonds. Theists rule–like it [...]
The Naked Theologian
is a Unitarian Universalist minister working on a Ph.D. in Theology
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