Though I'm very sorry to hear about this "bump in your road", I'm not really sure what to recommend in the way of helpful reading. I'm probably a poor person to ask, in fact, since my own greatest solace in moments of crisis tends to come mainly from what one might...

Keeping one's emotions in check is not the same as pretending they aren't there or suppressing them. The people who, you say, "encourage and demand the full experience of whatever emotion you are going through" may be concerned that otherwise the emotions will get...

I'll have to go back and reread the chapter you mention—Philip Sherrard's "Metaphysics of Logic" in his Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition (Holy Cross, 1998)—before I can offer anything close to a solid response. What I can certainly say, however, is that...

Finding the right balance is certainly difficult, though I've been playing the juggler long enough, I suppose, that I take a certain delight in moving, as efficiently and skillfully as possible, between my university teaching and my writing and publishing commitments....

I've been invited to lead a program this weekend for a nearby chapter of the C. S. Lewis Society. I told them I didn't wish to give a lecture but that I'd be happy to guide a Socratic discussion—in part as a nod to Lewis's own presidency for many years of the...

Do manus, of course. How could I not agree that my post last week (October 27) concerning the McGrath vs. Hitchens debate was "rather simplistic"? Do keep in mind, though, the limits of this medium. Any given entry is bound to cut corners. Over time, God willing,...

It's quite understandable that beauty, particularly sonorous beauty, is for you an opening to Heaven and even—in its way—a modality of prayer. There is certainly nothing to apologize for if you have an affinity for sacred music. On the other hand, this alone will not...

The recent Christopher Hitchens vs. Alister McGrath debate? Yes, as a matter of fact I did see it—not in person, but on-line. One of my graduate students, who had thought about making the trip to Georgetown but then changed his mind, sent me a link, and with his...

Yes, I have indeed been rather "out of commission" with regard to this weblog for the last week or so, devoting my energies to preparing a short article I'm calling, provisionally, "Provocations in Place of Answers". It's been one of my most difficult, but also...

How, you ask, would the Christian tradition defend itself against the Islamic reproach that the Incarnation (hulul) "restricts" the Divine Presence? You would like to know, more precisely, what a Christian might say to those "several Sufis" who claim—citing the...