Articles By: Gary W. Moon

Thomas Aquinas is a man of mystery. Born into a wealthy, powerful family he chose the simple life of a poor friar. He was a large lumbering man whose classmates labeled “the dumb ox.” Yet he proved himself quick of wit and the possessor of a brilliance so rare that his voice has been heard “bellowing across the ages.”

After performing at the Ozark Mountain Folk Fair in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in 1973 John Michael Talbot began to reconsider his life. What seems so remarkable about this was his age—nineteen—and the fact that most would say he was on top of the world. After all, he and his brother, Terry Talbot, were the heart of a country-rock group known as Mason Proffit, which had fronted for some of the biggest acts of that era, including the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. Nonetheless, John Michael had the sudden revelation that his life
was empty and sad.

This summer I was vacationing with my family in Europe when I was slapped in the face by a sentence hiding in a book. We were near the end of our adventure and had worn most of the print off our four Eurail passes. My wife and two daughters were napping, and by reading Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions, I was trying not to join them. Somewhere between London and Edinburgh, I found the words that left me red-faced: “Paul, whose letters epitomize the concerns of the early Church, knew what Jesus had taught, but he almost never quotes him.”

Donald Harris is a remarkable man. While serving as a Navy chaplain, he developed an affinity for outcast sailors, finding himself drawn to those who repulsed most others – the abused and the abusers, the afflicted and the addicted, the yellers and the smashers. Hollow, angry eyes were for him a siren call for grace. But the young lieutenant had a major problem. The ones who most needed his help often had hearts of stone – impenetrable to his offer of God’s love.

together are representatives from the prominent tributaries of Christian spirituality- incarnational, contemplative, evangelical, holiness, charismatic, and social justice. Each is participating in a dialogue, sharing with unusual transparency about authentic transformation and why it seems so difficult actually to become like Jesus.

I’ve gotten the question several times:“Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?” Three occasions burn in my memory.

The first occurred during a job interview. It was the final stage. Several faculty members from a conservative seminary in the Midwest had me encircled, peppering me with questions, trying to see if I would fit in with the group or stand out like a Speedo in the baptistery. I don’t recall my exact words, but I got the job offer, and I didn’t lie.

Brian McLaren has become a very important voice in contemporary Christianity—in part, by declaring that modernity has been a noxious pill for the body of Christ. His recent book A New Kind of Christian became a tonic for many who had become soured on the church and religiosity. But it was the following quote from Adventures in Missing the Point that made us want to interview him for this particular volume of Conversations:

I have a good friend who turned a fascinating idea into a fine dissertation. Marty Goehring is the friend. He’s a clinical psychologist, but like so many of the therapists I admire, he talks more about the spiritual classics than modern psychology.

Over the past four decades I’ve learned the same foundational truth about discernment from three very different people. One is my Uncle Otis, a semifamous faith-healing evangelist who was Charismatic long before it was cool. The other two are Dallas Willard and Ignatius of Loyola.

A tailor prayed, “Lord, I cheat on pieces of cloth; you let babies die. But I am going to make you a deal. You forgive me my little sins and I’ll forgive you your big ones.”

Lew Smedes included that haunting anecdote in his important little book, Forgive and Forget. He uses it to call attention to a concept that might be more comfortable to ignore: theodicy and the problem of pain. Or more to the heart of the matter, what is the impact of our pain and suffering on the way we view God?