I have been reading John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality over the past couple of weeks. Picking through it, mostly. According to my Kindle, I am 38% of the way through the book. So I thought it might be good to take a moment to offer a brief, initial reflection. Continue reading
My goal when I started blogging was to write two posts per week. I think it is safe to say that I have not met that goal lately. We have been a bit short staffed at work, and I have been putting in long hours both in the office and at home just to keep up. I have also had to resign myself to the fact that, when keeping up is your goal, perfection cannot be. So the past month has been the month where I have been learning to be content with what is possible.
I am painfully aware of the fact that I have not met my goal with turning my dissertation into my book. I have to remind myself that this is not because of laziness. Rather, the opposite! It owes to the fact that, as my psychiatrist put it, I “tend to greatly overestimate my own capacities.” I have a hard time saying “No” to good opportunities.
Jonathan Edwards (via Wikimedia Commons)
I am taking a momentary pause from my writing retreat to think out loud about a question that has been bugging me. I am working on an invited chapter for a book Kyle Strobel is editing which seeks various takes on the theology of Jonathan Edwards. If memory serves, it is called The Ecumenical Edwards.
I would say what I am working on, but I have heard a few stories about scholars stealing each others’ ideas to be a bit shy about that sort of thing. It does not happen often, but it happens. Continue reading
During Great Lent, I ran a series of posts from guest bloggers asking to explain why they became Orthodox. The why is important. Most of us are very good at telling the story of how we converted, but I asked contributors to reflect upon the reasons behind that story. I have spent the past three weeks reflecting on the posts in the series. What I learned was different than what I expected. Continue reading
I posted this to Facebook yesterday. I was going to try to get it on my blog then, but I was too busy trying to give my wife a good Mother’s Day.
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When I was nine, I was identified as gifted, but my undiagnosed ADD made it hard for me to keep up with the faster pace. So I decided to give up, because you cannot fail when you do not try. (But you can fail your classes.) Continue reading
For those of you who are worried about the government brainwashing our children with Obama’s “socialist propaganda,” I present my daughter. My problem with Obama is that I do not think he is socialist enough, yet Kyla comes often comes home from school parroting political opinions that make me throw up in my mouth a little.
Last night, she told me that she was going to do a civics project where she had to write a letter to her senator about a topic she cared about. She chose gun control, or as she put it, “I want to write against people who are trying to take away our right to own guns.”
Ick. Continue reading
Read more about the Into Orthodoxy series.
By David J. Dunn
My baptism (yes; that is a swimming pool)
I became Orthodox because I fell in love. Nobody can tell you why they fall in love. Nobody can make you fall in love. It just happens. In the mystery of Orthodoxy, I fell in love with a God who loves me, a sinner.
I came to God in a small holiness church. I was reared in the faith by wonderful people, people who taught me what it means to be a Christian. But I did not really love God. I thought I loved God in the way that a 12 year old girl thinks she loves a 12 year old boy. I was really afraid of God – afraid of hell – and tried to master my fears by mastering God. I studied the Bible, and later theology, to get God “right” and feel better about my own salvation. Continue reading