Fear and Wonder in the Upper Room
How many souls are there for whom salvation is less than a half-minute away! If only, that is, they allow themselves to be awakened from the sleep of sin long enough to be surprised by grace.
Can We Know Who Is Saved?
“Is he a believer?” As a former evangelical, I remember hearing (and asking) this question frequently. Much is at stake in answering it: is the person someone who can be trusted, with whom one can fellowship and pray, or should we pray for his conversion? I used to label people “believer” (or not) with speed … Read more
How Monasticism Testifies to God’s Reality
Over the years, I have become acquainted with various logical arguments for the existence of God—some I find more convincing than others. Of course, the strongest evidence comes from direct experience, for God is a person to be mystically encountered, not an abstraction to be logically deduced. This should not be taken to imply that … Read more
Are Atheists Addled?
“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” ∼ G. K. Chesterton “When I hear the word culture,” Herman Goering boasted, “I reach for my revolver.” Since he was, after Adolf Hitler, the second-most powerful man in the Third Reich, attention was paid. And while he may have stolen the line from Nazi playwright … Read more
The Chair of St. Peter and the Apollo Moon “Hoax”
We live in the age of conspiracies. What, if anything, do they tell us about the world we live in today? And, what if, behind all these theories, there is indeed one monumental conspiracy? On December 10, 2015, a video purporting to be film of Stanley Kubrick appeared on the internet. Allegedly the work of … Read more
The Reasonableness of Religious Belief
I have always been a believer. Among other reasons, that’s because I think rationality demands it. When I talk about “belief” here, I mean it in a very broad sense, which is not synonymous with “Catholic” or even “Christian”; Sikhs, Hindus and Zoroastrians might all qualify, and I myself was raised in the LDS church … Read more
On The Efficacy of Happy Thoughts
We’ve all gotten the message from a well-meaning coworker or friend: they’ve heard of some misfortune or illness you’ve suffered and they tell you that you’re “in their thoughts” or that they are “sending you positive feelings.” You’re left wanting to thank them but wondering just what, exactly, such a sentiment actually means. The power … Read more
