Romanian Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) was a great twentieth-century scholar of religious history and religious experience. He is perhaps best known for his work on seeking to identify universal patterns in human history and experience, and for his theory of hierophanies, or “manifestations of the sacred.” For Eliade, persons and objects “acquire their reality, their identity, only …
A grain of wheat
John 12:23-24; Luke 9:23 Sprouted shoots of barley and wheat. Walk into almost any church, and you will see one of two realities – either the predictable machinations of moralistic therapeutic deism and passive consumer religion, or the beauty, mystery and enthusiasm of a gathered community of Jesus followers, experimentally living out their faith. One reality …
Come and see
John 1:35-39 If you were a young Christian in the 1990s, you may have seen, or you may even have worn, a wrist band with the letters “WWJD.” It’s an acronym for the question, “What would Jesus do?” For the nerds among us, the phrase is drawn from the subtitle of a novel by Charles …
What is the mission of God?
Rod Benson, Moore College staff devotion, 6 February 2023 Opening of a new building at Moore Theological College, 1 King St, Newtown, Sydney, in 2017. We all face challenges and uncertainties in life. We feel the impact of our past, our family of origin, our environment, the choices we make, and a range of events …
First steps: Letter to a young Christian
By John McCrindle Last month I shared the text of a pamphlet that my grandfather, John Cree McCrindle, wrote many years ago to commend and share his Christian faith with fellow workers in the coal mines in Ipswich, Queensland. That was one of two similar undated pamphlets I possess. In the other, in the form of a …
All Told 