Recovering Awe…
In an age where fairly ordinary experiences are described as “awesome” (“awesome movie”, “awesome meal”) there is a risk that we trivialise awe away. To confuse the mildly pleasing with awe is an issue, especially when it leaves us unobservant of that which should truly leave us in silent, speechless wonder. I’ve had a few awe struck moments in the last week, largely because I was able to get down south to the beachside resort of Dunsborough. There were times when I was on the beach alone, a vast ocean ahead of me. I had the strangest sensation of...
Read MoreReductionism or Awe: Thinking about God
It’s always good to think about God. What is less good is assuming we are always right and that we are on top of our subject. Any description or explanation of God is at best a simplification or a reduction, and that is as we would expect it to be. After all, as Tom Wright has noted, when you look at the majesty of the Universe and see its astonishing complexity, and recognise how finely but perfectly tuned it is, you don’t assume that the Divine being whose imagination brought this all into existence is One who you can quickly understand. When you genuinely sense the greatness...
Read MoreOn not making great things small…
I recently listened to a podcast in which Fuller Seminary President Mark Labberton lamented that religions (including Christianity) have a habit of making great things small. He said he initially heard the sentiment from his father – who at best was on the fringes of faith. He hadn’t really understood his father’s point until his own God encounter when he was about 18 years. His mother, who attended church periodically, realised that her son had experienced something meaningful, and so invited a pastor to come and see him. Labberton says that the meeting felt awkward from...
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