Collected here are articles and reviews that have appeared in print, as well as a presentation of my books. There are a few interviews and some sound material, notably my reading of the Gospels in Greek, a project that remains work in progress.
The Christian proposition is founded on the claim that an Eternal Word, the metaphysical and intentional source of all there is, engages with the world and speaks to it for its flourishing’s sake; and that this Word, at a given point in time, entered history to renew human nature from within, repairing malfunction, so to speak, by re-installing the operating system.
Continue reading The Gospel cannot be reduced to a banal, ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’. When it is, it ceases to be Gospel - it becomes, then, just a means to self-deception.
Continue reading In these times of consultations and questionnaires, we are constantly asked to reflect on our responses to things. Our basic mode of understanding is self-referential.
Continue reading Hesitation is ancient and nocturnal, the antidote to youth renewed ‘like the eagle’s’ through Paschal waters, to life in ascent.
Continue reading We often forfeit, it seems to me, a view of human beings broad enough to appreciate what complexity may be contained, given time, within a person’s equilibrated destiny, unfolding through inevitable struggles, supported by friendship, to creative maturity.
Continue reading What was manifest in Bethlehem, such is the Christian claim, is more than the singular grace of a specific destiny. The ‘sign’ reveals a renaissance of humanity, called to relinquish chimeras of self-sufficiency, to abjure the lie that man must be to man a wolf, to pursue peace — pertinent prospects for us who ascertain worldwide the erosion of notions of the common good.
Continue reading On 27 May Cardinal Hollerich, ever unafraid to say the unexpected, said that if we try to speak to people of our time about chastity we are likely to seem to be ‘speaking Egyptian to them’. I had just sent my London publisher a manuscript entitled 'Chastity', so had I in effect written a manual of Egyptian?
Continue reading ‘It is rare’, wrote Simone Weil in 1940, ‘to see misfortune fairly portrayed’. Confronted with the apparent ultimatum of force, we tend to ‘treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation’.
Continue reading The good news of the body’s significance and of the realisable, death-defying scope for human wholeness was entrusted to a ragged dozen people in a collective state of post-traumatic stress, not especially brilliant humanly speaking, but shorn by stark humiliation of presumption, so freed to proclaim a message that surpassed them.
Continue reading He, born on Holy Saturday, had once for all anchored his life in the power of Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection. Anyone who has seen him celebrate the sacred mysteries knows how really present this power was for him.
Continue reading The challenge of owning oneself as oneself, of making peace, not just with humanity in general, but with oneself as a human specimen, is the first major combat a novice encounters. Anyone who has essayed it knows it can be fierce.
Continue reading What is beautiful does not force itself upon us. It is incompatible with violence (an essay written in Norwegian).
Continue reading Trofasthet koster. Det finnes ingen snarvei til menneskelig og kristen modenhet, om vi er gifte eller enslige, prester, legfolk, munker eller nonner.
Continue reading Det frykteligste ord som er blitt ytret mot vår tid, er dette: Vi har mistet naiviteten.
Continue reading ‘There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways.’ They may run in parallel for a while, but sooner or later they diverge.
Continue reading Panayiotis Nellas has been described by his friend Kallistos Ware as ‘somewhat stout, with a moustache and wavy hair; by character vivacious, warm and friendly; a generous man, eager to commend and encourage others, a good listener.’ It is fitting that one who inspires such humane accolades should have left a work subtitled, The Nature of the Human Person.
Continue reading I dagens tilstand av kirkelige kriser på så mange plan, i en samtid hvor barbariet overhodet ikke synes fjernt, minner munken Ranulfs ettermæle oss om grunnleggende ting. Skal evangeliet vinne frem, ja simpelthen komme til orde, må vi som forfekter det først og fremst få bukt med det utemmede i oss selv.
Continue reading To call something (an institution, an initiative) ’monastic’ when it is not, is to take away from the possibly genuine newness of what is coming into being while eroding the specificity of a definite charism. What is called for, I’d suggest, is a relationship of complementarity based on conversation and friendship.
Continue reading Snorre gir oss et levende portrett av Olav i eksil når han forteller hvordan kongen satt til bords en søndag og spikket på en trestikke, så oppslukt av tanker at han hverken enset tiden eller selskapet, uvàr at han brøt helgedagsfreden. Var hans tid forbi, eller var hans time kommet?
Continue reading Adam er en far som har fordervet sine barn; hans hustru Eva, hvis navn betyr “Liv”, er likeledes en dødsføderske. Hvorfor skulle vi tilkjenne vi oss dem, et slikt røverpar, som vårt kjødelige opphav?
Continue reading Laughter may turn out to be the natural voice of goodness and unselfconscious happiness. It is laughter of this kind we meet in Andreas Reiner’s remarkable portraits.
Continue reading Fra å si, "Det er allikevel ingenting jeg kan gjøre", til å si, "Det angår allikevel ikke meg", er avstanden kort. Og med ett ligger likegyldigheten og lurer.
Continue reading Nå i det siste har jeg lest en viktig bok. Den er skrevet av Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, professor ved universitetet Dresden og en kvinne av dyp kultur med bred kompetanse.
Continue reading 'It seems to me', says Athanasius, 'that [the words of the Psalms] are like a mirror to the one who prays them, letting him contemplate himself and the movements of his soul in them'. The occasional violence of the Psalter, so disconcerting to the uninitiated, here reveals its true, most profound significance: the transgressor no less than the keeper of the Law recognises himself in this book, 'for the Psalms contain the deeds of both'.
Continue reading At rettssaken mot Anders Behring Breivik stiller Norge overfor et nasjonalt trauma, er noe vi hver dag sanner. Det er alment godtatt at saken berører grunnleggende spørsmål innen både strafferett og psykiatri.
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