Experimental Theology


...trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus...the Lord out of dust had created him, had made him blood and nerve and mind, had made him to bleed and weep and think, and set him in a world of loss and fire... --Flannery O'Connor

7.03.2025

Some Thoughts About Prayer

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Some thoughts about prayer. The content of prayer is need, gratitude, and praise. Help, thanksgiving, and doxology. But the act of prayer is...
7.02.2025

Humility and the Healthy Ego: Part 3, Identity and Transcendence

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The argument I've made in this series is that the empirical research into humility opened up a doorway into the healthy ego, but that po...
7.01.2025

Humility and the Healthy Ego: Part 2, The Hexagram Tour of the Ego

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In the last post I suggested that what positive psychologists are describing as "humility" is really mental health. For example, i...
6.30.2025

Humility and the Healthy Ego: Part 1, Mistaking the House for the Door

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As I've recently shared here, in The Shape of Joy I recount how positive psychologists have put humility on the map as being integral t...
6.27.2025

Psalm 108

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"I will wake up the dawn' Psalm 108 is a curiosity. Some scholars describe Psalm 108 as a "mosaic" psalm as it combines m...
6.26.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 7, Keep Christianity Weird

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Let's end this series by returning to the three questions we started with.  First, can sacred magic be given an orthodox Christian descr...
6.25.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 6, Sacred Magic in Judaism

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Before turning to wrap up this series with a critical summing up and appraisal, I wanted to step a way from Christianity to make some observ...
6.24.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 5, Ontological Effects

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A few years ago, one of my Hispanic students, a Catholic, asked me if I had some holy water. "I figured you'd be the only professor...
6.23.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 4, Matter as a Mediator of Divine Power and Grace

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In John Milbank and Aaron Riches' Forward to Gregory Shaw's  Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus  they make connect...
6.20.2025

Psalm 107

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"pay attention" Psalm 107 is the start of Book V of the Psalter. Book IV is heavy with exilic themes, and Book V turns to praise, ...
6.19.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 3, Theurgy in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

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In the last post I introduced the concept of theurgy in the thought of the Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus.  As mentioned, theurgy eventu...
6.18.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 2, Theurgy, Neoplatonism, and Iamblichus

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The theological term for "sacred magic" is theurgy.   Theurgy has its origins in Neoplatonism. Consequently, before we examine Chr...
6.17.2025

On Sacred Magic: Part 1, Can Magic Be Christian?

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I recently mentioned that I had been reading Valentin Tomberg's Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism . I shar...
6.16.2025

Metaphysics and Debate

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A few years ago I was beating the drum a great deal about the necessity and unavoidability of metaphysics. (Since 2007 I've gone through...
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