Peripatetic Pastor

Category: Thoughts and Reflections

  • THE ART OF HOLDING TOGETHER WHAT WANTS TO FLY APART: RETRIEVING THEOLOGY, JULIAN OF NORWICH

    I’ve called this series of blog posts “Retrieving Theology.” It comes from two convictions. One is that old theologies have in them insights that remain crucial for understanding the truth about ourselves, our world, and God. We throw away these theologies at our peril. The second is that these same theologies are too often presented…

  • OF WIDOWS AND KINGS

    Where the lectionary meets the events of the day I have been working on a post about Julian of Norwich, the 14th century theologian, as part of my “Retrieving Theology” series. I’ll post it in a week or so. Julian is a fascinating theologian. As Denys Turner argues, she’s not really a mystic, the category into…

  • OF GOD AND OCTOPUSES

    ON GOD AND OCTOPUSES Retrieving God A few posts back I proposed to engage, along with you, my readers, in the work of theological retrieval. The challenge of theological retrieval is to recapture in a new time the excitement and insights of old theology.  I tried to do a bit of that with the Reformed…

  • WALKING ALLEYS

    A Labor Day Meditation WALKING THE ALLEYS A Labor Day Meditation My wife walks alleys. We live in a neighborhood that has alleys. Newer subdivisions mostly don’t have alleys, but in this older part of town alleys are everywhere. If the streets are front doors for the neighborhood, the alleys are back doors. Like back…

  • THE WORK OF THEOLOGICAL RETRIEVAL

    Thinking Old Thoughts in New Ways In theology, as in much else in life, you can’t go back. Take human origins. Once the stories in Genesis were taken naively by many as the way things happened: Once upon a time there was a garden, a man, a woman, and a snake . . ., that…

  • CATECHESIS: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    Catechesis The question, put to me by a former student of mine, was about catechesis—systematic instruction in the faith. We would not have called it that. We called it “catechism.” We went to catechism. I began going to catechism somewhere around second grade. Our first catechism books were pared down versions of the Heidelberg Catechism,…

  • NAMING WHAT CANNOT BE NAMED: MEDITATIONS ON THE PAST, PART 4

    I had thought to conclude this short series on the necessity of history with my last post, available here. I had planned to move on in several different directions, including some thoughts on the significance of the Reformed theology of the divine decrees, trying to retrieve from that seemingly stale theology something of value for the…

  • RESURRECTING THE PAST: MEDITATIONS ON THE PAST, PART 2

    “‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ [O’Brien] said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’ ‘Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past,’ repeated Winston obediently. ‘Who controls the present controls the past,’ said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion,…

  • POLITICS AND KOREA: A PALM SUNDAY MEDITATION

    The question was how Christians should respond to political developments. It came, as such questions often do, from deep anxiety about what was happening in her country. How should she be involved? Should she join a demonstration? Should she be shouting across the street at those who opposed what she stood for? What in these…

  • STRETCHING

    We are frequently told by “they”—anonymous experts cited in the popular media—that we should stretch before exercising. Good advice, I suspect, although in all my years of exercise I have never actually stretched. Still don’t. If it’s tennis, I grab a racquet and head for the court. If it’s a jog, I strap on my…