Advent Is When Christians Talk about Hope. But Is There Any?

December 13, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

Advent, the Christian liturgical season leading up to Christmas, is the time when songs and sermons about hope fill churches of all denominations. We read prophecies about the beating of swords into plowshares. We sing “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus,” with confidence that his coming will “hope to all the world impart.” Sometimes we’re even more directive in our petitions. “Give them vict’ry o’er the grave;” “death’s dark shadow put to flight.” Those are but two of the hope-bathed lines... Read more

A New Theology for Thanksgiving

November 23, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

As I load the car, like millions of other Americans, for a long road trip to see family this week, I find myself contemplating a theological reclaiming of Thanksgiving. Holy Days All holidays were once, as is more or less obvious, “holy days.” Even as those days enter into secular civic space, the “holy” backgrounds remain part of what makes them meaningful for many people. Thanksgiving, though, is problematic. Is there really an old holy that we are celebrating? Most... Read more

Naming the God of the Night Sky

November 14, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

Hello readers! I mentioned earlier in the fall that I’d be stepping away from my regular posting rhythm so that I could work on a new book of ecotheology. Well–I kept my promise! The book, in draft form, follows my sabbatical journeys, and my meditations on the God of life and place that I encounter. Here’s a sample from a backpacking trip I took two weeks ago to Big Bend National Park. A meditation on naming creation. Morning in the Mountains... Read more

The Bento Box Rule of Life

October 2, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

If you were to look through my journals over the last few years, you would see a pretty good little collection of diagrams, complete with quadrants and arrows. These are a part of my practice of spiritual growth and self-awareness. It’s a process my colleague Steven Tomlinson recommends for crafting a rule of life. A rule of life is a term from the monastic tradition for a practice of intentionality for a life of faith. Steven teaches a process he... Read more

All I Know of Holiness

September 26, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

The Nazarenes and Wesleyans who first gave shape to my faith taught me to care deeply about holiness. When I was reconverted, as a young man, it was largely through the discovery of a deep and rich language of holiness in Saint Augustine. “Seek his face always,” says one of his favorite Psalms (105:4). I became convinced that the features of holiness that comprise God’s face are the same features that can come to shine out from the lives of... Read more

Resonating the Mountain: Some Good Ecotheology in The Rings of Power

September 21, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

I am, like many of you, watching The Rings of Power, basically as soon as Amazon releases each episode. So far I’m loving it. I want to reflect a bit here on “resonating,” a practice that comes up in Episode 2. Getting Tolkien Right Getting Tolkien right matters. It matters especially to many of my generation, for whom the books became a kind of well-shared secret passport to a magical world. We’re all still a bit scarred from the havoc that’s... Read more

Summer 2022 Reading

September 7, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

How about another list of books I’ve been reading? But first… Why Read Books? Like many of you, I have a lifelong habit of reading. I think it’s a good habit to have, though I suspect that sometimes I go after it like a shark who can’t stop swimming and feeding. My habit began as a child, reading The Boxcar Children, then sports biographies, Anne of Green Gables, anything by Lloyd Alexander, the Tolkien books, Charles Dickens. I had a... Read more

Grandma’s Prayers

September 2, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

Praying in Chorus It’s difficult to describe, for those who have never heard it, what a chorus of prayer in 20th century Nazarene Churches sounded like. Especially the churches out in the Midwestern countryside, like the one I attended with my Grandma and Grandpa. Generally the pastor would ask someone to “lead,” and that was a very literal term. Everyone was expected to pray, silently, aloud, or a combination of the two. But someone would stand and speak loud enough... Read more

What Was John’s Baptism about?

August 24, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

If no one knew that Jesus was the messiah yet, what was John’s baptism about? What was he baptizing people in the name of? It seems this would have been blasphemy in the eyes of the Jews. Today I take on another question from a reader. This is, in fact, one of the first questions I wrestled with an an undergraduate at Olivet Nazarene University. I’d begun studying the Qumran community of Jewish Essenes that gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls,... Read more

Isaiah, or, Exodus All Over Again

August 20, 2022 By Anthony D Baker

In Isaiah, we learn that God’s mighty acts of liberation are a non-identical repetition of an old pattern. The Exodus story is the only story there is, even if it gets told in new ways. Isaiah’s Complex Setting The writings of this prophet are, to put it mildly, difficult. This is largely due to the complexity of the politics in and about which Isaiah prophecies. Assyria lays seige to and ultimately overwhelms the Northern Kingdom (Israel). Egypt waxes and wanes... Read more