tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-308139662011-04-21T18:05:55.977-04:00Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.comBlogger401100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-90732872722396197852009-01-30T22:15:00.005-05:002009-01-30T22:35:02.053-05:00

Setting: Two friends, sitting around a living room of a Sunday afternoon.Pieter: Hey, let me ask you something, an ethical hypothetical if you will. Theophilus: Shoot. Pieter: Ok, say one day a guy’s driving along, minding his own business, when he sees a person apparently stranded by the side of the road. Theophilus: Uh-huh. Pieter: Now, there doesn’t seem to be any urgency really, let

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-79186058253439532002009-01-21T14:15:00.001-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.256-05:00

It has been all too common when discussing the current war in Iraq, as with perhaps any war, for someone critiquing the war or advocating any kind of pull-out to be personally accused of any number of things. First and foremost, it will be alleged that the critic dishonors the military service of those risking their lives and profanes the memory of those who have already made the ultimate

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-23207012948734153562009-01-07T17:00:00.004-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.258-05:00

It has been said that America is a place for new beginnings and second chances. Americans, more than perhaps any other people, are obsessed with the ideal life, with the improvement of their very selves. The Europeans first to land in the new world, and the waves of immigrants ever since, have been people who were by definition looking for the grass to be greener on the other side … of the ocean

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-76360154603336481572008-10-05T00:00:00.001-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.260-05:00

In my previous post I attempted to give enough of a positive picture of obedience to at least get the idea a hearing.To continue recussitating the idea of obedience - to try to get it up on its own two feet so we can get it doing some real work - we need to flesh out a bit more of a definition.For this work I'm turning again to the tradition of Benedictine monasticism. Where better to explore the

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-1152595319283533692008-09-22T00:01:00.006-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.261-05:00

Here begins the first installment of my second attempt at a conceptual rehabilitation. I'm officially adopting concepts I find useful but that are currently orphaned by our culture including, largely, the church and trying to get them a fair hearing. I previously took a stab at the word 'authority,' and I continue now with the perhaps even less popular concept: 'obedience.'In coming installments

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-28601340542770552872008-08-31T15:31:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.263-05:00

I recently listened to a podcast of a booktalk by Hanna Rosin giving a talk (about a year ago) on her book, God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America.The book is about the school that seems to be a veritable breeding ground for White House interns, Patrick Henry College. In her talk, Rosin marvels at the juxtaposition of a student body which is intellectually sophisticated,

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-33648525437159689842008-03-06T00:10:00.011-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.265-05:00

In a review of a new Library of America collection of journalist A.J. Liebling's work, Fresh Air contributor Maureen Corrigan relates the following intriguing quote taken from one of his WWII pieces. He writes:"Cynicism is often the shame-faced product of inexperience."I found this line immediately striking as a succinct counterpoint to the overly relied-upon assumption that level of cynicism

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-39852922082879812332008-03-04T00:40:00.006-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.267-05:00

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-22447851641982589662008-02-19T23:00:00.002-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.268-05:00

In the bad old days of yore, as we are taught to call them, when religious beliefs were not mere matters of private opinion, one could get in real trouble for expressing the wrong beliefs. One could occasionally lose one's life! Now we just get mocked on the internet.Today, in our enlightened age, one's beliefs or disbeliefs are no more the business of anyone else - let alone anyone in authority

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-54241111893637388762008-01-18T01:33:00.000-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.270-05:00

This past Sunday, my son, Jonah Gregory, was baptized. But, "Whatever for?" you might ask. Well I've wondered this myself.Everyone knows Christians get baptized. Few of us, even if we call ourselves Christians, think about why we were baptized, or why we should baptize anyone else.Baptism is just one of those things. People don't want to talk about it or think about it because either A.) It's

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-84803253468347052212008-01-11T00:29:00.002-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.272-05:00

Atheism and agnosticism are both terms that are thrown around quite loosely and sometimes even interchangeably. Because of this, discussions between professed members of either group, or between theists and members of either, can be remarkably unfruitful.One sadly typical battle between theists and atheists is that fought over which position requires more faith. This interaction usually features

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-56403411537405027592007-12-30T00:16:00.000-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.274-05:00

I'm not usually in the position these days of writing on really current day-to-day events, the supposed forte of the blog medium. Well no more! Having seen a movie a few weeks back (on opening day I think!) I'm prepared to launch this blog into the world of immediate cultural relevance.The movie was I'm Not There, a weirdly successful bio-pic of Bob Dylan as portrayed by six very different

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-56647794009976222102007-11-26T01:45:00.000-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.276-05:00

(continued from previous)The conversation on the moral superiority of religion vs. atheism is in a way not interesting to me. If that argument were a horse race, mine would still be in the stable, biding his time, thoughtfully munching hay. As I've tried to say, I don't think being religious or having faith is itself any kind of virtue precisely because I do not recognize any strict

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-87984791851484652502007-11-21T01:05:00.000-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.278-05:00

(continued from previous)For the sake of the current discussion we'll call the two elements of the Christian tradition under consideration by the shorthand of present and future focus. The present focus is the spirituality of everydayness, the cultivation of moment-by-moment awareness. It includes both the consider the lilies stuff and the validation of finite historical human life itself. The

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-23531899850928321222007-11-09T18:39:00.000-05:002009-01-27T13:34:18.280-05:00

(The following is part of a conversation with a friend wherein I try to answer his objections to my earlier post as to the place of self-sacrifice in Christianity.) [1]We are going to talk about two seemingly separate strands within Christian thought. On the one hand there is the strand that underwrites or encourages a kind of sacred awareness of the present. You know, "consider the lilies", and

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-2384279272291307962007-10-31T13:21:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.287-05:00

I have done next to no reading of scripture on its own over the past few years. I read a lot of theological books that quote scripture or reflect on stories or themes from it. There are of course scripture readings and sermons every Sunday. There are scripture readings in my prayer book. My church small group has done studies of a book or two of scripture. But on my own, with Bible in hand, I

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-55334738700102865102007-10-25T18:12:00.001-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.288-05:00

I’ve been torn for some time, all along really, about work, both inside and outside the home. With all of the disciplines, drawn to theorizing as I am, I am not able to separate how I think the discipline should be thought of from how I actually experience it. My struggle is with how to get them to be one and the same.With work this tension is the most obvious. On the one hand I believe one

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-13926349299959873152007-10-24T22:17:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.290-05:00

The first spiritual discipline I have worked at is prayer. I began with the assumption or conviction that prayer should be regular and as fixed in time as possible. I’m not sure what gave me this idea at the time, but I was sure that if Christian devotion meant anything it involved somehow submitting oneself to God, and submission can not happen in prayer if I only pray when and how I feel like

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-88079974443872369882007-10-23T14:45:00.002-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.292-05:00

Here is an interesting article by a (former?) Calvinist on why he (used to) think Calvinism is cool. It focuses on the Reformed tradition as antidote for the mushiness of American Evangelicalism.I also recently stumbled on this great essay about fixed hour prayer with a few personal stories.

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-35561000131484892282007-10-09T16:05:00.001-04:002009-02-03T23:44:01.112-05:00

So I recently found out that I am relatively in-the-clear in terms of my cancer. The doctors have decided that I don't need any treatment following the surgery and will only keep me under close observation for the coming years. I am trying to be as grateful for this news as I ought.This officially makes me a cancer survivor. In fact, I've been told that I'm a survivor from day one. Whatever that

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-66064718185347028952007-09-28T00:52:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.296-05:00

Every day I become even more confirmed as a hopeless sentimentalist and yet more incorrigible in my cynicism.Could it be that this is the appeal of the Christian faith, its way of combining, even inextricably intertwining, the highest and lowest estimations of mankind, without confusing or muddling them?

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-45483200953200473492007-09-25T15:50:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.298-05:00

---What follows is my response to a friend, edited and made anonymous, who wrote me a sincere note about, among other things, his struggles with feeling genuine empathy with someone like myself in the midst of serious illness. It turns into a reflection on the relationship of a loss of faith and feelings of inauthenticity in spirituality. --- There is always an element of uniqueness or

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-36342845110086501942007-09-18T17:54:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.300-05:00

I remember musing in a conversation with my wife a year or two ago that there were two different ways of caring too much about money: wanting to have it in order to spend it, and wanting to have it in order to keep it. In my mind the difference was between hedonism and an obsession with security. It turns out that a 6th century Saint, Maximus the Confessor, bested me by one. He writes that "there

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-33824552329889282892007-09-17T18:47:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.302-05:00

Dear heavenly Father, we have come together to repent. We have come together to worship. And now we come together with these humble requests. We pray for your Church in all places and all manifestations. We repent for the missteps we have taken and will take - the many things done in your name that grieve you – and for all the divisions we create or maintain in Christ's body that ignore his own

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-79732529566248685262007-09-08T23:41:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.306-05:00

Walking around with a big piece of news like a cancer diagnosis and a recent surgery is a kind of burden. I am speaking here not of the anxiety over the issue itself, but in terms of the unseemliness of talking so much about oneself and the repetitiveness of explaining over and over the story and the details known thus far. News travels fast and sending a few mass emails goes a long way. But

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-10776037879378736412007-09-02T22:47:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.308-05:00

I've been re-reading Gilead, the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Marilynne Robinson lately and I am constantly amazed by how much depth can be communicated in a novel. It is striking how a story about fictional characters can pack more insight into, well ... life, the universe and everything, than just about anything else. I just find it so exceedingly odd and wonderful that a total stranger can

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-74888314188838506122007-06-26T17:35:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.311-05:00

My denomination, the massive and now ancient (just turned 150!) Christian Reformed Church, has made a decision to further include women in church office. This decision interests me, not only as a member but as a compelling case study of dealing with ecumenical issues. The change that's actually occurring is a little confusing but let me try to recap, quoting the CRC Synod News Service. First, "

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-24764665870691187802007-06-08T18:11:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.314-05:00

It seems like everybody wants to be a mystic. The mystical way is usually taken to be that of the extreme ascetic: your stereotypical bone-thin, gaunt-eyed, cave-dwelling kind of saint. That way may well have its place, but a path for the more everyday mystic is pointed to by Richard Mouw who writes in his Praying at Burger King that: "I seldom find myself in a praying mood while sitting in a

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-47657393462614364832007-05-31T02:34:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.316-05:00

My dear friends, even though you are all basically agnostic or atheistic in your thinking and I am a Christian (and a pretty theologically conservative or orthodox one at that,) I do so appreciate and enjoy our discussions on the idea of transcendence and the philosophical categories involved in thinking about it, I would like to delve deeper into that conversation here. You have quoted

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-51185620899818320832007-05-25T23:02:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.320-05:00

"Just on a theoretical level there is a mistake in going from the background you come from to an entirely fresh background. The way you know that a religion is your religion is that you have problems with it. If you don’t have problems with it, it’s not your religion."This quote is from an interview with Philip Groening about his new film Into Great Silence. I liked it so much because I think it

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-22421959375985887202007-05-04T14:27:00.001-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.323-05:00

I love to read. I also find reading excruciating. I'm usually reading a number of books at a time which is nothing unusual, but what might be different about me - and which my wife, Marie, at least finds insane - is that I usually know how many pages I have left to the next chapter and to the end of each book. It's a cliché for avid readers to say they're sad when a good book comes to an end. I

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-47299719383916112332007-05-03T23:25:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.325-05:00

In season 6, episode 4 of The Sopranos, Tony's in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound and the resulting surgery. He's been reading a kid's book on dinosaurs, the only reading material around, when he turns to his nephew Christopher, and says, "Get this. It says here if the history of the planet was represented by the empire state building, the time that human beings have been on earth

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-19934677551386335672007-05-02T23:04:00.001-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.327-05:00

Soren Kierkegaard is quoted as the epigraph of Nancy Klein Maguire's An Infinity of Little Hours, as saying:"Of this there is not doubt, our age and Protestantism in general may need the monastery again, or wish it were there. The 'monastery' is an essential dialectical element in Christianity. We therefore need it out there like a navigation buoy at sea in order to see where we are, even though

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-17572165248930347402007-04-29T15:28:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.328-05:00

I'm afraid I didn't do quite a good enough job painting a picture of the purely individualist view of the self, the view that rejects all authority other than its own. (Holders of this view would probably use different terminology.) So I can't resist adding a couple quotes from someone who does a much better job. I know there's endless material that would do as good a job or better than what

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-34563918063896366302007-04-27T23:23:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:55.052-05:00

Any debate on religious authority usually takes the form of those in favor of authority versus those against it. Thus conservatives will argue for obedience to authority (Catholics stressing hierarchy, Protestants the scriptures) while liberals or progressives argue against it. But it's never really a question of whether or not one obeys an authority, but rather which authority one respects. [1]

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-206752788405330832007-04-24T22:50:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.332-05:00

This is the second of a multi-installment 'series' on the idea of authority, both in general and as it relates specifically to theology and the Church. Call it, if you will, an attempt at conceptual rehabilitation. Having begun to chew over a sense of religious authority, and reactions to it, in the last post by looking at the person of Pope Benedict XVI, I turn now to a reflection on authority

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-46791644805954869282007-04-15T22:27:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.334-05:00

I recently completed a book-length interview with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, entitled Salt of the Earth. I've also read his Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and his first Papal encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). I first started browsing his books when he was elected Pope, out of an interest in Church current events, and then continued

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-1152577621532808232006-07-10T20:12:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:40.741-05:00

Don't worry. This isn't going to be another rant against everybody's favorite philosophical whipping boy, poor old Rene Descartes. I came across the following quote a while back in The City of God by the eminent Aurelius Augustinus, otherwise known as St. Augustine. In the 26th Chapter of Book II, he says the following:"I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the academicians: What if you are

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-1152332361585573882006-07-08T00:09:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.338-05:00

I plan to use quotes or brief selections I come across in my reading to bounce off of in order to spur some incidental thinking. The first quote is from Debra Rienstra's recent So Much More: an Invitation to Christian Spirituality. There are of course countless beautiful and inspiring words to draw on from down through the centuries. The reason I'm giving this quote the role of launch pad and

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30813966.post-1152329291718056962006-07-07T22:11:00.000-04:002009-01-27T13:34:18.340-05:00

I'm nobody special. Nobody whose thoughts merit anybody else's attention, let alone the attention of complete strangers. No, I'm just your average twenty-something, a number of years into marriage (I started early), a couple years into parenthood (also begun quite early), a couple years out of graduation from a four-year liberal arts institution, in possession of an expensive, yet-to-be-paid-for

Kevin Spoelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13816964515410300560noreply@blogger.com0