Dr Paul Allen

If appreciating some of the ideas in St. Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ was enough to make you a Christian,” a friend said to me some years ago, “then I’d be a Christian. But a personal God? The miracles? I can’t get there yet.” Whenever I write about the decline of organized religion in America, I get a lot of emails expressing some version of this sentiment. Sometimes it’s couched in the form of regretful unbelief: I’d happily go back to church, except for one small detail — we all know there is no God. Sometimes it’s a friendly challenge: OK, smart guy, what should I read to convince me that you’re right about the sky fairy? So this is an essay for those readers — a suggested blueprint for thinking your way into religious belief. But maybe not the blueprint you expect. Many highly educated people who hover on the doorway of a church or synagogue are like my Augustine-reading friend. They relate to religion on a communal or philosophical level. They want to pass on a clear ethical inherit...

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” - Malachi 1:2a Sometimes, life is incredibly disappointing, discouraging, and deflating. As believers, we read about the power of God over and over in the Bible. But, we often don’t see it show up in our lives. We also read of heaven and how wonderful everything will be when God is done with history. But in the meantime, life can feel like we are carsick kids stuck in the back of a crowded car on a long road trip to Disneyland – it will be great once we get there but it’s an awful ride in the meantime. In the book of Malachi, God’s children (young and old) were struggling . Perhaps you can relate to them? Financially, they were in a crisis as their economy had collapsed and no relief was in sight. Politically, their little nation was getting kicked around by other nations and armies.  Morally, it became the norm for people to stop obeying God and do pretty much whatever they wanted. Spiritually, folks w...