Gregory of Nazianzus, in his sermon on Baptism (Oration 40:65), stumbles into an interesting comparison and makes the most of it for his preaching. He is thinking of how the Christians he is about to baptize are being introduced into the great mystery that is life in Christ, and it makes him think o...

Paul Gerhardt (12 March 1607 – 1676) is widely considered the greatest German hymn-writer. Some people reserve that title for Martin Luther, but Gerhardt is famous primarily for hymns, while Luther had some other accomplishments that boost his fame. As one scholar has argued, “Every Protesta...

The story of Buford Pusser, the legendary sheriff of McNairy County Tennessee, is fascinating. Pusser's career as a wrestler came to a close so he moved his family back to his home place to run a sawmill with daddy Carl. He's shocked to discover the level of corruption going on. And after he is a vi...

Natural Law (Continued from Part I) Critics of the Bible often point to ancient history as a method of discrediting the authenticity of the Bible. Specifically they claim ancient history refutes the notion that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God. Whereas Christians and Jews might point t...

I appreciate that that's a big claim (it's somewhat reduced and relativised by the fact that we're talking about 'me' - who really cares about what I've learned...), and I don't want to minimise all the other things I've had to learn (and continue to learn) but the reality is that they flow from thi...

Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.  Joel 2:13 At the heart of repentance, the very core of the life of the believer, is the call to turn again toward God.  We, God's chosen and ho...

John Toland (born 1670, died March 11, 1722) was a philosopher most famous for his book Christianity Not Mysterious (1696). In that book, Toland scores some good points against obscurantism and mystery-mongering, but he gets greedy about it, puts God into his Locke-box, and demands that the Deity ca...

First of all, the organisers of this year’s festival deserve credit for a great series of fixtures, with some smart and courageous decisions on artists and staging. Second, they seem to have done a good job with ticketing, with far fewer of the good seats at events going empty (and seat alloca...

This is an adaptation from Commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians. We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your pers...

Fr. Loya of Catholic Exchange has a great article on how Lent can be helpful to our sex lives: Lent is characterized by three things: prayer, fasting and almsgiving (increased charity.) Perhaps the most striking of these three features is fasting. The practice of fasting is found in many of the grea...