Summary (Brad Bergfalk) Houston moves from describing the “Heroic Mentor” and the “Stoic Mentor” to what he calls the “Secular Psychotherapeutic Mentor.” Houston asserts that the “therapeutic mentor” is the most pervasive of the three in American culture. The “therapeutic mentor” finds its embodiment in the psychoanalytic revolution of Sigmund Freud and later Carl Jung. Whereas previous civilizations were grounded in some kind of religious foundation, the post-psychoanalytic revolution is wholly secular. According to Houston, the psychoanalytic theory succeeded in... Read more

George Barna, in his new book Revolution, claims the primary source for the new generation’s spiritual formation is shifting away from the local congregation model to a more fragmented model. That is, we get what we need from the sources we know about, but not all of them (or even the primary one) is our local church. So, I’m keen on asking this: What about you, where do you see your primary source for spiritual formation? (Don’t ask me to... Read more

George Barna, in his new book Revolution, claims the primary source for the new generation’s spiritual formation is shifting away from the local congregation model to a more fragmented model. That is, we get what we need from the sources we know about, but not all of them (or even the primary one) is our local church. So, I’m keen on asking this: What about you, where do you see your primary source for spiritual formation? (Don’t ask me to... Read more

Because I was hearing so much chat about Barna’s new book, Revolution, I thought I’d read it. Here’s the nub of the book: there is a revolution going on in the Church (big “c” not little “c”), and it concerns how to live out the gospel in the context of the Church. His contention is that the current generation of Mosaics (I don’t get into labelling each 5 year group) is revolutionally committed to the gospel but no longer understands... Read more

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and an author of many books about Christian spirituality, has recently published Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another, and I want to jot down a few notes about what I think is a nice book. The book is about the desert fathers and mothers, and it ruminates (which is his style of writing) on four exceptionally interesting themes in desert spirituality: (1) Life, death, and neighbors; (2) Silence; (3) Flight, and (4) Staying.... Read more