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Index: Theology

A theologian explains panentheism to the bishops, beautifully.

…the Spirit not only dwells within the world but also surrounds our emerging, struggling, living, dying, and renewing planet of life and the whole universe itself. It illustrates this with Luther’s great image of God in and around a grain; with Augustine’s magnificent image of the whole creation like a finite sponge floating in an infinite sea, necessarily filled in its every pore with water; and with the beautiful image of the pregnant female body…

From the Øιλοκαλíα to Franny’s pea-green book.

Fr Andrew Louth: ‘The influence of the Philokalia can be thought of in two rather different ways. On the one hand, we can think of what one might call the reception of the Philokalia: that is, how it was read, who read it…On the other hand, we could think of the influence of the Philokalia in another way: how has the Philokalia affected the way its readers understand the nature of the Christian life, the nature of the Church, and even, in particular, the nature of theology?’

· What’s at the end of the night stair, pray tell?

Human beings work with what they have and the extraordinary thing about successive civilisations is that they are working to the same ends, often in poetic ways and increasingly in scientific ways, but do we think that our current ways are the final definition of four and a half billion years of struggle?

· OMG, there’s actual religiosity in Trollope’s spirituality?

Liturgy is where art and community life meet. Where spirit is not thought but made flesh through hands, knees, and vocal chords. In worship the stuff of art is offered up in the name of the community, not the ego of the artist—or the clergy.

· Going to Easter services with a haruspex named James Joyce.

THE MIRACLES OF THE season vary over time. One century’s miracles are another’s footnote. What could be more miraculous than standing at an Orthodox Paschal liturgy in a northern Italian port city next to an Irish sceptic named James Joyce? By R. J. SCHORK [Journal of Modern Greek Studies] – In the autumn of 1904 […]

· Shopping for miracles with Buddha on the brain.

When the Buddhist goes shopping he feels like we all do: unified, in control, and unchanged from moment to moment. The way things feel becomes suspect.