The Confessions of Saint Andrew

This guest post is brought to us by my brother, Andrew C.

I tell a story about my grandparents that may be completely made up.

They were looking forward to a fireside about marriage, and the morning before the presentation, their bishop told everyone in the congregation that, if they didn’t have a perfect marriage, he wanted them to attend.

Grandma and Grandpa looked at each other, and they didn’t go.

I saw Grandma after Grandpa died. “Getting old is not for wimps,” she said, and she looked very sad, gray hair, gray skin, a droop to her like she couldn’t think of a reason to sit up straight. Half of her was missing, and because I saw my grandma in that state, I think the story I just told you might actually be true. It is possible that it could be.

I desperately want it to be. Read More

Why Do We Need the Holy Ghost?

The study of the Holy Spirit (sometimes called pneumatology) is an under-developed area of Christian theology.  While volumes of ink have been dedicated to explicating the precise relationship between the Father and the Son, the third Person of the Trinity remains much more elusive, sometimes showing up only as a kind of afterthought.  This is not to say, of course, that matters of pneumatology remain entirely unaddressed.  For example, the Holy Spirit is often discussed in terms of the relationship of the Father and the Son, as that which binds them together—and also binds us into the trinitarian life which they share. Some theologians grappling with questions of pluralism talk about Christ and the Holy Ghost as a way to balance particularity and universality, as Christ comes in a particular time and place, where the Holy Ghost is sent throughout the world.  One twentieth century theologian (Wolfhart Pannenberg) even attempts to bring the Holy Ghost into the dialogue between science and religion, and proposes that it might be understood as a kind of cosmic force field.  But compared to  many other areas of theology, there isn’t all that much work on the subject. Read More