wonderful thoughts from the Pope, intellectually coherent and practically relevant and doable IMO
Weekly lessons in theology and public life • Since 2011
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Lesson 8: Questions about Spirituality
Read MORE: Lesson 8: Questions about SpiritualityI have written and put aside five essays for this post. Each time I finished one, someone brought up concerns I had not addressed. I finally decided to simply report what friends were telling me, as their questions seemed more…
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Lesson 7: Spirituality in a Modern Technological Society
Read MORE: Lesson 7: Spirituality in a Modern Technological SocietyI started this series hoping to understand what people mean when they use the word “spiritual.” Many who say they want no affiliation with an established religion still consider themselves spiritual. Some theologians predict that churches will become spiritual centers…
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Lesson 6: Spiritual in Church History
Read MORE: Lesson 6: Spiritual in Church HistoryThroughout the years, being spiritual has usually referred to experiencing God’s presence in one’s life. When the early church spoke of Jesus’ Spirit living on after His death, they meant more than merely recalling past experiences and reports, more than…
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Lesson 5: The Spirit in Paul
Read MORE: Lesson 5: The Spirit in PaulI am trying to develop an understanding of spirituality that makes sense in the 21st century. I started by examining what the Bible has to say. When I reached the New Testament, I found that Luke-Acts, John, and Paul make…
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Lesson 4: The Spirit in the Gospels
Read MORE: Lesson 4: The Spirit in the GospelsIf you had asked me a year ago what it means to be spiritual, I would have begun discussing different classifications of life, such as physical, mental, and spiritual. Then I would’ve attempted to describe the characteristics of each. Over…
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Lesson 3: The Spirit as Word
Read MORE: Lesson 3: The Spirit as WordSpirit is one of the most constant terms in the bible. It is used for God. It is used for humans. It is used to express the relationship between the two. Yet like the air we breathe, it is so…
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Lesson 2: The Basic Meaning of Spirit
Read MORE: Lesson 2: The Basic Meaning of SpiritBiblical scholars typically begin their discussion of “spirit” by cautioning that there is no consistent meaning throughout the Bible. They then most often describe how wind and breath are used at the most basic level. This relatively simple perspective uses…
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Lesson 1: What Does It Mean to Be Spiritual?
Read MORE: Lesson 1: What Does It Mean to Be Spiritual?I want to lay a foundation for examining spirituality. Mental activity has broken down to support the competing ideologies in our present social conflict. Although “spirit” has always had a multi-dimensional meaning, I felt it still had the potential to…
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Lesson 13: Summary of Prophets
Read MORE: Lesson 13: Summary of ProphetsI was surprised that the first thing that jumped out at me when I reflected on this series was how much the religious and political authorities resisted the message of the prophets. Admittedly, at the invitation of some of our…
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Lesson 12: Modern Prophets
Read MORE: Lesson 12: Modern ProphetsExcept for a very few small sects, prophecy as an office in which a person received a message directly from God disappeared from Christianity for 2000 years. The institutional Church used canon, creed, educated theologians, and consecrated authority to discern…
Recent Comments
I absolutely love these ideas, especially paying attention to beauty and reducing your needs.
Fritz a wonderful lesson – and esp. reading has a flow I found encompassing. If only …….. yes we can…