The Tremorous Invisibility of God

After reading Michael Novak’s book, No One Sees God (2008) several years ago, as much as I enjoyed the book, it has been its title that has stuck most with me, the clear simplicity of this most vexing aspect of God: His invisibility. It forms the basis for all the various religious ideas, doctrines, practices […]

ALL THAT GOD ALLOWS

I am writing this shortly after two major hurricanes have ripped through both my adopted state of North Carolina as well as Florida and Georgia. These hurricanes have flooded or destroyed homes in North Carolina and flattened entire towns in coastal Florida. As always, there were personal stories of both people who either dodged tragedy […]

WHO IS GOD?

Long before any religion formed and named itself, whether pagan or monotheistic, there was our Natural world. Our earliest sense of God’s divinity came once men and women recognized that we were both different than other creatures yet part of the larger Natural whole, easily witnessed both on the ground as well as in the […]

ONCE EVERY DAY BECOMES THE LAST

As a physician for many years, I have at times been faced with patients suffering from diseases from which they will not recover, that they are going to die, and soon. While we are taught to help such patients and their families during these very difficult times, each situation is unique and so we have […]

OUR UNRAVELING PURITY

I am finishing up reading a book about the Puritans, which focuses on their sense of persecution in England and coming to what will become Massachusetts in the 1620s to establish a sense of freedom here to develop a Bible-based society. The Puritans thought of themselves as “the new Israelites,” and saw “the New World” […]

WHY THE JEWS HAD TO KILL JESUS

First, about the title. Some will either feel offended or correct me for being historically wrong, since we all know that Jesus was crucified by the Romans. Although I am a Christian, this essay will eventually come around to a Jewish psychological perspective to try to explain the necessity of their removing Him as a […]

NUDGING THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY TOWARD GREATER CLARITY

Several years ago, I read a book entitled No One Sees God, which strikes me as the starting place for all religious doctrines, whether Christian, Jewish or otherwise. Perhaps it was the ancient Egyptians, before the Israelites, who first tried to fill in the vacuum between all we don’t know and the too-little we do […]

JOHN THE BAPTIST

What is the place of John the Baptist in the trajectory between the Old and New Testaments? What does his work say about God’s frustration with us after His long attempts, through both stories and prophecies, to persuade us to follow Him in the OT essentially fail? The OT tries but fails to go deep […]

THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRISTIANITY

Question: “Have you ever experienced divine intervention”? 40% (free will) —— 40% (Bible) —– 20% (Shroud of Turin / near-death events) psychology portion: we are the “living hosts” of God & Jesus on earth, His faith is placed in us to do His work in the world —- by giving us free will, we can […]

Leaving Church and Bringing God with Us

Several years ago, my wife and I left the Presbyterian church we had been attending for 12 years. While we seriously deliberated our decision for much of last year, once it was done, we felt relieved and had no second thoughts. We began our own little “home church” on Sunday mornings or evenings by listening […]