I've often wondered how the Song of Songs made it into the Biblical canon. For starters, God's name is never once mentioned. It also happens to be the most sexually explicit book in Scripture. I'll be honest. I sometimes avoid reading portions of...
Illiteracy was widespread in Medieval Europe among peasants and nobility alike. Monasteries were one of the few places where reading was taught and flourished. The mass of society depended on learned priests and monks to read the Bible for them and...
He was known around campus as Doctor Profundis (the Profound Doctor). Little wonder. He was one of the ablest theologians of his day, along with being a skilled mathematician and brilliant physicist. Thomas Bradwardine (1300-1349) came to saving...
This story is about a woman who wanted to succeed for her talents, not her connections. Novelist Charles Dickens was close friends with the Procter family. Father Brian was a lawyer by day and a poet by night. Their home became a haven for London's...
When Chuck Colson (1931-2012) went to see his friend Tom Phillips in 1973, his life was imploding. He was under investigation for his role in the Watergate scandal and a plot to discredit Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers. As a new...
The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. As the main research library for the University of Oxford, it contains 13 million printed items. Its special collection archive includes a 10th-century document of manuscripts and...
Aloneness gets a bad rap in our day. We equate aloneness with loneliness, yet it's possible to be alone without being lonely. Aloneness is not loneliness when we are in the company of God. One danger of so much online connectivity is the temptation...
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was the most celebrated painter and sculptor of the Renaissance period, but he's also the one who leads us in today's prayer. His first commissioned sculptor at 23, the Pieta, depicted Jesus' body as it was...
We all suffer, some more than others. Jerry Sittser (1950-) was new to the faculty of Whitworth University in Spokane, WA in 1991. He and his family were returning from a visit to an Indian Reservation in Idaho when their van was struck by a drunk...
Joy is a misunderstood word. We commonly associate it with happiness, which relies on outward variables to achieve pleasure. Joy isn't contingent on outward circumstances. Joy originates in the heart of God and is one of God's good gifts to people....
In nearly every poll of the best U.S. presidents, Abraham Lincoln comes out on top, eclipsing even our founding father, President George Washington. Lincoln's popularity today would have been inconceivable during the Civil War. He was roundly...
My grandfather named his farm “Blaenant,” which my dad said was a Welsh word meaning “house at the head of the stream.” My son and family live in an 1814 New England house called “Journey’s End.” Before houses had street numbers, they were...
The year was 1932, and Edith had just graduated from high school. She attended a meeting at her Presbyterian Church where a Unitarian minister spoke on the topic, "How I know Jesus is not the Son of God and how I know the Bible is not the Word of...
As Billy Graham traveled the world preaching the gospel, his wife, Ruth Graham (1920-2007), stayed behind to raise their five children. They were married in 1943 and moved to Montreat, NC, so Ruth could be near parents when Billy was absent from...
Old North Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street in Manhattan had fallen on hard times. Long-time members relocated to other parts of the city as new immigrants arrived looking for jobs. The church hired a 49-year-old cloth merchant, Jeremiah...
Adela Cathcart was in her late teens and quite ill, what one doctor termed "an affliction of the soul." We call it depression. Adele's family and friends gathered to share stories with her as story-telling therapy. She attended Christmas worship,...
I hardly know what to make of Catherine of Siena's (1347-1380) mysticism. While walking with her brother at age six, she had an ecstatic vision of Christ seated in glory. At seven, she devoted her life to Christ and resolved to live a celibate...
Asia Minor was afflicted with a severe drought in 368 AD, resulting in a famine in Caesarea, the city where Basil (329-379) served as bishop. He had already given away his substantial inheritance and joined a monastic order. Some of his wealthy...