At the start of this series on knowing God, we need to think about what is we mean when we think or talk about God. It's fine — and necessary — to talk about God's will, God's initiative, God's revelation, and so on, but this can easily mislead us. Unsurprisingly, ‘God’ is a big topic … Continue reading GOD: Three Letters and a World of Problems
One of the great archetypes of world literature is the Quest: one hero given a mission to do something that seems impossible, whether that’s to conquer the unconquerable enemy, or scale the unscalable mountain. It’s such a stirring trope to the human imagination that it forms the basis of the Hero’s Journey, the universal narrative … Continue reading The Great Quest (A Reflection on Deuteronomy 30.11-14)
I mentioned at the end of the last post that I hoped in this series on Knowing God to provide something of a map for the topic. While I hadn't been thinking in these terms when I wrote that, it helpfully reminded me of the saying of Alfred Korzybski, "The map is not the territory." … Continue reading The Map is Not the Territory
Over the past couple months, I have written about the conceptual relationships between religion and spirituality and language and linguistics. While my educational background in linguistics means that these connections fascinate me, there was a reason for doing this deep-dive beyond my own interest. Thinking about God and faith through this lens is essentially about … Continue reading Knowing God: Introduction
There’s an old episode of The Simpsons in which Homer, having sold his soul for a donut, is brought to Hell. Specifically, he is taken to Hell’s “Ironic Punishment Division,” where he is force fed donuts for all eternity. Of course, being Homer J. Simpson, the joke is on the demons: he goes on happily … Continue reading By Our Own Words (A reflection on Luke 19.11-28)
Matthew Root 