There is a story about an American philosopher who went to Japan for a conference on religion.  He overheard another American delegate speaking to a Shinto priest.  “We’ve now been to a good many of your ceremonies,” said the delegate, ‘and have seen quite a few of your shrines.  But I don’t get your ideology; I don’t get your theology.”  The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head.  “We don’t have an ideology”, he said.  ‘We don’t have a theology.  We dance!” Perhaps we have forgotten that Christianity, itself, began as a dance.  There was no ideology, no comprehensive philosophy.  Rather there was a series of extraordinary gestures in the life of Jesus…

Throughout our human story mountains have been places where people have often chosen to go, or felt attracted to go, to wrestle with the deep questions of their existence.  What is it about mountains that does this? Perhaps, it is their “closeness” to the sky? Perhaps, the thinness of the air makes for clearer thinking? Or maybe their height enables a sense of perspective?   Whatever the reason, mountains are very important places in Scripture.  They are the places where people seem to encounter God.  They are places where covenants between heaven and earth are forged.  The encounter which people have with God on the mountain top, however, also occurs alongside the encounter with their…

From time to time I am interviewed about my journey, my faith, and my vocation. I recall a question in such interview very clearly. The question was: “Have you always been an observant Christian? Was there a critical moment in your life – an ‘aha!’ moment – when you saw the power and beauty of your religion with particular clarity, and chose to embrace it? Tell us something about what you saw, who influenced you, and how that moment impacted upon your life/lifestyle.” For me the question can easily be answered almost to the day and the time. One of the most significant experiences in my own spiritual life was…

Healing is front and centre of Jesus’ ministry. Healing from the perspective of the gospel, however, is never effected simply by attention to physical disease.  We know healing is not simply a physical phenomenon.  It is a far more profound experience.  Some writers would go so far as to suggest that all illness is a psychosocial reality – i.e., it places the person in a new relationship with their society – a relation which can either isolate a person further and compound the effect of illness, or relation that places the person at the centre of the community’s concern and, thus, in no small way, redeems the person’s particular disease.  The most negative aspect…

One of the privileges of our life is to be able to sit with someone else and to listen to their story and to hold their struggle to find meaning in their life.  Sometimes those people with whom we might sit may have been struggling a long time, and alone. Sometimes they may have given up any struggle, and, rather, given in to the emotional or spiritual impasse they reached many years before.  And sometimes they may have only just set out on a deeper search for themselves and for who God might be for them. Often, of course, we have no word to give, and the silence is hard to bear.  On…