moses

Joys of Successful Aging, by Evangelical George Sweeting, Moody Bible Institute
Aging

Joys of Successful Aging, by Evangelical George Sweeting, Moody Bible Institute

12/13/2025 Bruce Strom 1

George Sweeting writes: “Age adds maturity and richness to life. Age smooths the rough edges of life and adds gentleness and compassion. They say: ‘The older the violin, the sweeter the music.’ Some speak of seniors as ancient, faded, frail, shriveled, senile, withered, wrinkled, and worthless!” I prefer to say seniors are “experienced, dependable, mature, patient, seasoned, steady, wise, tested, survivor, and veteran!” […]

JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: How Was It Influenced by Nordic Mythology and Catholicism
History

JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: Was It Influenced by Nordic Mythology, Homer’s Iliad, and Catholicism?

05/10/2025 Bruce Strom 0

What inspirations did JRR Tolkien draw from for his best-selling series The Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit? Like his friend CS Lewis, Tolkien was an English Professor specializing in medieval and ancient literature and languages. When CS Lewis was contemplating whether to return to his Episcopalian roots, abandoning his youthful agnostic views, Tolkien argued that he should convert to Catholicism. CS Lewis resisted these pleas. IMHO, though CS Lewis was conducive to Catholicism, and may have even confessed his sins to a priest, he likely thought he would be more effective evangelizing through his books as an Episcopalian.
Both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis fought in the trenches in France as British soldiers during World War I, they both lost many friends who fought beside them: they both experienced the horrors of war. Both were too old to serve in World War II, but this struggle against the evils of Naziism directly influenced CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, both released shortly after the war. […]

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2
Judaism

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2

12/29/2023 Bruce Strom 2

When studying the rabbinical commentaries on Deuteronomy, I was struck by the number of times the commandment to Love God was repeated in various forms, including the commandment to Fear God, which is roughly equivalent, so I decided to count them, there are about twenty repetitions. This was surprising to me as a Christian, for as St Paul exhorts, “the letter” of the law “kills, but the Spirit gives life.” […]

Catholic Middle Ages and Beyond

Dark Night of the Soul, by St John of the Cross, and Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysus

07/06/2022 Bruce Strom 0

What is the Dark Night of the Soul? Many are misled into thinking that the dark night of the soul is a dark place, but St John of the Cross views the dark night of the soul not from his mortal perspective, but from perspective of the eternal, the unknowing, where light we cannot perceive is so luminous that we see it as darkness, this Mystical Theology he draws from the poetry of Dionysius. […]

Judaism

The Decalogue in the Torah, Blog 2, How One Sin Can Lead to Many More, Up to a Perfect 10

06/25/2021 Jonah Fischer 2

The Decalogue is symmetrical. The commandments to Love G_d with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your possessions are mirrored in the commandments to love your neighbor as yourself. If you steal, murder, or adulter today, yesterday you coveted that which was not yours and could never properly be yours. Coveting is wanting. Coveting is looking. Looking, if not sinful, and it is sinful, is inviting sin to cross under our doorposts. […]

Early Church Writing

St Irenaeus Blog 3 Allegorical Interpretations of Scripture

07/25/2018 Bruce Strom 2

After Adam and Eve had eaten of the apple they were ashamed and hid, weaving coverings of fig leaves, a rather itchy leaf. St Irenaeus tells us, “Adam adopted a dress suited for his disobedience, awed by the fear of God,” which is the beginning of wisdom, “waiting for God’s coming.” By his dress he admits to himself, “I by disobedience lost that robe of sanctity which I had from the Spirit, I do now acknowledge that I am deserving” of such uncomfortable dress, which tortures the body. God, who is merciful, clothes them instead in a more comfortable tunics of skins of fur. They were then driven out of Paradise and the Tree of Life because “God pitied them and did not desire that he should continue a sinner forever, nor that his sins become immortal.” God set a limit to his sin by imposing death, “so that man, ceasing at length to live to sin, and dying to it, might begin to live in God.” There would be life in Christ, as St Paul exhorts, “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” […]

AntiSemitism

Epistle of Barnabas, Beginnings of Anti-Semitism?

12/09/2017 Bruce Strom 2

The Epistle of Barnabas is a curious epistle that surprisingly has some messages that ring true with modern Christians. This epistle was likely written just after most of the books of the Bible, and was considered by some Christian communities as inspirational. Eusebius in his early History of the Church says the Epistle of Barnabas was “not canonical but disputed, yet familiar to most churchmen,” […]