by Mark Beckwith | Mar 26, 2024 | Uncategorized
When I arrived in Japan in late August, 1973, for a two year fellowship, the country was preparing to honor the 50th anniversary of the Tokyo earthquake, which upended the city for four minutes on September 1, 1923. 140,000 people were killed, many by the 7.9...
by Mark Beckwith | Mar 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
“The opposite of faith is not doubt”, a wise mentor once said to me, recalling a line from Christian writer Anne Lamott; “the opposite of faith is certainty.” Religious claims of certainty have been surging on public platforms and in various political expressions. ...
by Mark Beckwith | Mar 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
We were at the breakfast table. My daughter, then about a year and a half, was in her highchair, scrambled eggs on the tray in front of her. With an impish grin, she threw some of her meal on the floor. “Don’t do that,” I said in a rather stern tone. With an even...
by Mark Beckwith | Mar 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
“We will not allow for a policy of ‘anything goes’”. So said the Chair of a plenary meeting of Anglican bishops in 2008. There were about seven hundred bishops from around the world attending the once every decade gathering in Canterbury, England. The plenary took...
by Mark Beckwith | Feb 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
I don’t know people who have literally sold their soul, a metaphor that goes back centuries, but there are many of us who have abandoned, ignored, forgotten or dismissed the very concept of soul. There are ancient and medieval legendary characters — Theophilus, a...