Matthew R. Green's Blog, page 102

The Anti-People

An old colleague of mine recently posted on Facebook a wry comment about a certain non-Christian spirituality. While cute, it struck me as a variation on something I’d seen before, numerous times. It got me thinking that, frankly, evangelicals can tend to get stuck replaying the same records over and over again. We have certain […]

A Culture of Sea Gulls

Years ago, when Pixar was moving into its Golden Age, they produced Finding Nemo, a picture where you just were used to creatures having intelligent conversations with one another. Fish? Check. Octopi? Talk away. Pelican? Loquacious. This is part of what made it so amusing that when they showed sea gulls, they were the exception […]

Lighthouse Trails Research: Shrouded in Too Much Fog

For some reason, Lighthouse Trails Research has come up rather often lately. I know a number of people fairly recently who have had to explain why they aren’t heretical to people who have read something from this group. They’re reasonably well-known among those who work with spiritual formation, generally as “that group that hates us […]

An Alternative Prayer

Someone on Facebook recently posted a prayer asking God to bless, heal, and provide for oneself, family, and friends. Having been rereading The Divine Conspiracy lately, it sort of struck me oddly. I couldn’t help but think of Jesus’ words on the Sermon on the Mount (paraphrased), “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute […]

A Brief Look at God’s Take on Creation

“So we must understand that God does not ‘love’ us without liking us – through gritted teeth – as ‘Christian’ love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly […]

Make Good Art

So I’m sitting here on the computer, worn out from the last few days and in the midst of a string of games of Bejeweled (it’s like Candy Crush Saga, but significantly less evil. Still evil, but significantly less) when I think to myself, “This is a giant waste of time. God, what should I […]

There’s Guilt, and Then There’s Guilt

English is a really weird language. My German teacher in high school commented that, when he immigrated to America at nine years old, he thought we were crazy when he had to figure out how to deal with thought, though, rough, and through. I rather don’t blame him. One language quirk that I’ve thought about […]

The Emotional Heart

As of the time I write this, more than 80 people have been killed in protests in Egypt as people attempt to wrest control over the nation from one another. Locally, a young man pulled a knife on a streetcar and ordered everyone off, only to be shot dead by police. Of course, there is also […]

The Visions You Already Have

I was reading through Willard’s Renovation of the Heart again recently as I thought it might have some worthwhile thoughts for my dissertation. I got to thinking about his VIM model – you must have a vision, the intention, and the means to accomplish any kind of task, including self-improvement and, in this case, spiritual transformation. There’s […]

Projection Junction… What’s Your Function…

I’d like to start out by apologizing for the terrible, terrible title. Really. I’m so sorry. Christians often end up in conversations and musings, it seems, about other viewpoints and beliefs. I just landed in one this last week, which, I have to confess, I regret a bit. It got me thinking about how we […]