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...
by Mark Beckwith | Feb 21, 2024 | Uncategorized
When Aleksei Navalny returned to Russia from Germany in January 2021 after recovering from being poisoned, prison was certain and death was likely. Navalny died on Friday, February 16 at the IK-3 Penal Colony, located 1200 miles northeast of Moscow in the arctic...