John J. Thatamanil, Author at Faith Tides https://faithtides.ca News from the Diocese of Islands and Islets in the Anglican Church of Canada Tue, 06 Jan 2026 22:17:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://faithtides.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cropped-Faith-Tides-Icon-32x32.png John J. Thatamanil, Author at Faith Tides https://faithtides.ca 32 32 207835967 The church and the culture of addiction https://faithtides.ca/the-church-and-the-culture-of-addiction/ https://faithtides.ca/the-church-and-the-culture-of-addiction/#respond Tue, 06 Jan 2026 20:16:08 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=176785 Facebook knows me (almost) better than God knows me In capitalism’s latest phase, we are the products being bought and sold. If we think we are getting something for free — Facebook, for example — then we’ve been had. Our attention has been hijacked and monetized. We offer invaluable assistance to marketers by informing them […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/the-church-and-the-culture-of-addiction/feed/ 0 176785 Love must come before believing https://faithtides.ca/love-must-come-before-believing/ https://faithtides.ca/love-must-come-before-believing/#respond Mon, 01 Dec 2025 22:14:45 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=176691 In a recent conversation with a young first-time attendee at church, I attempted to establish common ground for a vital conversation by referring to the parable of the prodigal son, surely one of the best-known Bible stories: “Remember how Jesus tells the story of the young man who squandered his inheritance on prostitutes and lived with […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/love-must-come-before-believing/feed/ 0 176691 Keeping company with love https://faithtides.ca/keeping-company-with-love/ https://faithtides.ca/keeping-company-with-love/#respond Thu, 02 Oct 2025 16:03:41 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=176500 How would our lives be different if we believed that God is not elsewhere (the theme for our We Together gathering)?   Scratch that question. “Believe” is a broken word. We take for granted that the word means something like, “accept the truth of a proposition.” Suppose I’m inside a drab, windowless hotel conference room. You […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/keeping-company-with-love/feed/ 0 176500 The ordinary self and the divine Self https://faithtides.ca/the-ordinary-self-and-the-divine-self/ https://faithtides.ca/the-ordinary-self-and-the-divine-self/#respond Mon, 01 Sep 2025 22:04:08 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=176342 Learning from Hindu and Buddhist wisdom Three religious traditions dear to me all share a common insight: within each of us there is a twoness, an ordinary or conventional self and an ultimate Self. Those three traditions are Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. Christians don’t ordinarily talk about two selves—the expression is not native to Christian […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/the-ordinary-self-and-the-divine-self/feed/ 0 176342 Cultivating an undogmatic faith https://faithtides.ca/cultivating-an-undogmatic-faith/ https://faithtides.ca/cultivating-an-undogmatic-faith/#respond Tue, 03 Jun 2025 17:06:08 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=176116 It has been a difficult and beautiful month. For just shy of three weeks, I was at Dad’s bedside as he had entered at-home hospice care. This last week has been marked by his passing and funeral arrangements. Those first three weeks were sacred time, for many reasons. Dad was largely pain-free despite stage IV […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/cultivating-an-undogmatic-faith/feed/ 0 176116 Remembering the radical Pope Francis https://faithtides.ca/remembering-the-radical-pope-francis/ https://faithtides.ca/remembering-the-radical-pope-francis/#respond Thu, 01 May 2025 16:33:30 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=176044 The sanitization and the sanctification will start soon. Pope Francis has just passed but innocuous bromides about his contributions will come fast and furious. So much hinges on how Francis is remembered or misremembered.   I am acutely attuned to the domestication of powerful voices because I am currently co-teaching a course on Gandhi and King […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/remembering-the-radical-pope-francis/feed/ 0 176044 Softening the heart and mind https://faithtides.ca/softening-the-heart-and-mind/ https://faithtides.ca/softening-the-heart-and-mind/#respond Tue, 01 Apr 2025 20:47:15 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=175926 A letter from an American theologian to his Canadian church Dear Canadian friends,  I am guessing that you are as dazed and confused as I am about how American politics could have become so quickly and easily corrupted. Explanations are not easy to come by, and neither are solutions. So much has to go wrong […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/softening-the-heart-and-mind/feed/ 0 175926 What is the place of joy in Christian life? https://faithtides.ca/what-is-the-place-of-joy-in-christian-life/ https://faithtides.ca/what-is-the-place-of-joy-in-christian-life/#respond Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:03:31 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=175837 Within a context of overwhelming violence, injustice and suffering, what is the place of joy in Christian life? Under such circumstances, is joy an unseemly perversion, a self-indulgent obliviousness to real suffering? These questions seem unavoidable when unconstitutional abuse of power, approaching fascism, is being enacted in the United States and as ICE agents attempt […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/what-is-the-place-of-joy-in-christian-life/feed/ 0 175837 How to be salt and yeast https://faithtides.ca/how-to-be-salt-and-yeast/ https://faithtides.ca/how-to-be-salt-and-yeast/#respond Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:09:10 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=175476 In my September reflection in Faith Tides, I mused about whether it might be possible for the church to learn how to be small but mighty. I argued that we need to recover the ancient metaphors of smallness that Jesus routinely employed, salt and yeast being the most prominent. Both are examples of tiny things […]

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]]> https://faithtides.ca/how-to-be-salt-and-yeast/feed/ 0 175476 Can the church learn to be small but mighty? https://faithtides.ca/can-the-church-learn-to-be-small-but-mighty/ https://faithtides.ca/can-the-church-learn-to-be-small-but-mighty/#respond Mon, 02 Sep 2024 04:10:49 +0000 https://faithtides.ca/?p=175252 Church and world: how are we to think about the relationship between the two? Once upon a time, the question would have made little sense. When the church was the established centre of cultural life, it would have been impossible to untangle the church from the world. This was once the case in Anglican England, […]

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