Reflections Archives - Faith Tides

Lent, gender and revelation

Juli Mallett — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 20:46:21 +0000

Confession, and Lent in its penitential character, is not about adding guilt or punishment to our suffering, but the removal of shame. We are liberated from the oppression of things done and left undone when we are able to face them plainly, and to accept reality as it is, rather than as we wish it […]

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Where are we on our exodus journey?

Sandy Cotton — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 20:45:46 +0000

Christians ought to be really good at any venture involving change and transformation. Throughout every year, we explore the great transforming narratives of our faith tradition. When it comes to leading change, we are given privileged and reverential access to profound role models. We are fundamentally, and irrevocably, people who are called by God to […]

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What is the place of joy in Christian life?

John J. Thatamanil — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:03:31 +0000

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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The best of times, or the worst of times?

Adela Torchia — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:02:16 +0000

You may have recognized this title as being from Charles Dickens’s 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities. And like much of Dickens’s work, it remains relevant for our times. Here are the opening lines of the novel: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age […]

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A rite of passage

Selinde Krayenhoff — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:00:55 +0000

In the spring of 2024, I became a grandmother for the first time at the ripe old age of 68. I hadn’t really been waiting for a grandchild; my life was quite full and blessed as it was. But when I learned that a baby was on the way, my heart soared. Something inside me […]

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How to be salt and yeast

John J. Thatamanil — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:09:10 +0000

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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Theology Beer Camp — ‘The future is open’

Christine Conkin — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:01:55 +0000

“Where can we plant our feet?” Tripp Fuller asked in his introductory address at Theology Beer Camp, held Oct. 17–19 in Denver, CO. Planting our feet in the past is not an option. Planting our feet in the future is impossible. And, so, standing in the present, we looked towards the future, guided by many […]

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Oh God, it’s Otter!

Ramona Jones — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 17:43:27 +0000

Fur gives and fur gets, my dog told me. No wiser words were ever spoken. In 2017, I decided to attend church in my new town, Port Hardy. Our man of the cloth, the reverend at our combined Anglican-United church, was Alastair Hunting. I find it amusing that our dog’s name, registered with the Canadian […]

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Can the church learn to be small but mighty?

John J. Thatamanil — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 04:10:49 +0000

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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A debate on human goodness

John J. Thatamanil — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:36:32 +0000

Recently, a theological dispute broke out in the public square: a relatively rare occurrence in our post-theological era. Conservative evangelicals are irate about Pope Francis’s recent claim during an interview with CBS evening news anchor Norah O’Donnell that human beings are essentially good. They are not upset about Pope Francis’s unequivocal “No!” to O’Donnell’s question […]

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