by David Anderson
Most of us were taught that, along with being omniscient and omnipresent, God is omnipotent. But it’s hard to love a God Almighty. Omnipotent isn’t in the Bible. It’s a term coined by thinkers influenced by Greek philosophy, who saw God as infinitely above us, the pinnacle of perfection. He—and the omnipotent deity definitely has […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Belief, Lent, Love
Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “The act teaches you the meaning of the act.” This is pure wisdom, but we have mostly counseled its reverse. We have tried to teach people the meaning first to see if we might coax them into the act. If we taught people to believe that God calls us to love […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Belief, Daily Practice, Faith in Action, Happiness, Love, Service, Transformation
This morning I read this: A broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental creatures. First of all, they have noticed that the very language people use changes when they talk about religious beings, and the changes mean that they think about their […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Belief, Faith/Trust, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Surrender, Transformation
Last week I heard Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, the writer and scholar of the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, interviewed on the radio. He told a story that I haven’t forgotten. Rabbi Kushner was invited to a dinner for a class of young people preparing for their bar or bat mitzvah. Classes completed, they had come […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Belief, Faith/Trust, Love, Mystery
The things people tell a minister after church. . . . Yesterday a woman I did not know spoke to me after church—she was there for a baptism. I heard about the church of her childhood, where “salvation” was attained by refraining from smoking and drinking and dancing and cursing. It was a rigid theology […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Belief, Faith/Trust, Forgiveness, Grace, Love, Mercy
Sometimes we imagine—those of us who try each day to believe—that it must be nice to be an atheist and be so sure. It must be easy, we think with some rue and a little envy, not to have to prove anything because you swear there’s nothing real beyond what you can prove. C.S. Lewis, […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Belief, Faith/Trust
One of the Buddha’s most famous teachings is the Parable of the Raft. In it he likened his teachings to a raft for crossing a fast-flowing river. A man is trapped on one side of a river. On this side of the river, there is great danger and uncertainty; on the far side is safety. […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Belief, Daily Practice, Faith in Action, Freedom, Grace, Happiness, Now/ the Present
In an age of doubt and—worse—of apathy and cynicism, we all struggle to “believe.” We can’t believe what we blindly accepted as a child; many passages from the Bible are either confounding or troubling; taken literally, the Creed is a bridge too far. Faith or spirituality was always presented as a matter of “belief”—what you […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Belief, Change, Daily Practice, Faith in Action, Faithfulness