An era-defining gem. The post ‘Lisztomania’: What does Phoenix’s indie classic actually mean? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The Mongol Khans of Medieval France JamesHoare Mon, 10/20/2025 - 08:56

On the Spot: Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski JamesHoare Mon, 10/20/2025 - 08:57

John Mark Comer’s book Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like Him. Do as He Did has been declared the ECPA 2025 Christian Book of the Year. It’s no surprise that many evangelicals are discussing its vision for spiritual formation. Do we need more engagement with Comer’s work? First, the widespread interest in and unease about his approach tell me something deeper is going on. Many Christians I’ve spoken to express discomfort with Comer’s approach, but they can’t always articulate why. That tension warrants further reflection. Second, the differences between Comer’s approach and a Reformed Christian perspective on spiritual formation are worth exploring. Comer’s book is influencing many evangelicals. And evangelicalism arose from the Reformed tradition during the revivals of the 18th century. Unfortunately, my own book on spiritual formation in the Reformed tradition was too far along in production to engage with Comer’s work directly. This isn’t a book review. Rather, I want to highlight three significant ways Practicing the Way diverges from the model of spiritual formation commended by the reformers and, I’d argue, the Bible itself. Regeneration Neglected A Reformed approach insists spiritual growth is only possible for those who have been born again and united to Christ by his Spirit. Growth apart from this saving union is inconceivable because it’s only when we “are in Christ Jesus” that he can become for us our “righteousness and sanctification” (1 Cor. 1:30). Jesus teaches that “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). By contrast, in Practicing the Way, the doctrines of regeneration and union with Christ are virtually absent. Comer does talk about the need for the Holy Spirit, stating that spiritual formation requires you to “make your home in [Jesus’s] presence by the Spirit” (37). However, he doesn’t explain how one acquires the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Nor is there any sense in Practicing the Way that the Spirit’s work of regeneration is a definitive moment in a person’s life through which God “has caused us to be born again to a living hope” (1 Pet. 1:3). Instead, Comer focuses on the need to become an “apprentice” to Jesus, the master Rabbi, with an “end goal” of becoming “the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did” (122). This description puts Jesus at the center—which is good— but neglects our Spirit-wrought union with him. Comer’s approach is all about the way Jesus’s earthly ministry provides an example or pattern to imitate. Patterning our life after Jesus is clearly a biblical theme (e.g., 1 Pet. 2:21), but it’s not the only or even the most important theme when considering the person and work of Jesus Christ. Comer’s approach is all about the way Jesus’s earthly ministry provides an example or pattern to imitate. When the Jesus-as-pattern theme is emphasized at the expense of everything else, it obscures the biblical reality that our first and primary need is a Savior rather than a moral teacher. The Bible teaches that “everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1), the implication being that those who haven’t “been born of God” do not and cannot believe that Jesus is the Christ and thus cannot enjoy any spiritual growth at all. For example, Gandhi may have learned from Christ’s moral example, but by all accounts, he was never converted, and he died in his sins. Scripture Sidelined The Reformation was, in large part, a recovery of Word-based piety. The reformers insisted that deep, sustained engagement with God’s Word is the key driver of spiritual growth. They also taught that any means of spiritual formation must be derived from and dependent on Scripture. Thus, many spiritual practices that medieval people might have found useful were scrapped in favor of the biblical simplicity reflected in Psalm 119:9: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” Comer lists Scripture as one of the “nine core practices” that you must incorporate into your personal “Rule of Life” (181). He also states, “Scripture is the primary way we are ‘transformed by the renewing of [our] mind’” (186). So what’s the problem? First, Scripture intake isn’t one among many practices to be “utilized by an apprentice of Jesus for formation” (181). Rather, it is the means through which we commune with God. As Herman Bavinck notes, “Scripture is the ongoing rapport between heaven and earth.” In contrast, Comer labels “more Bible study” as a “losing strategy” and states that “church attendance, good sermons, and regular Bible study . . . have a very poor track record of yielding a high level of transformation in large numbers of people” (86–87). On the one hand, he states that sermons and Bible study are “more than good, essential” (86). But he also says that on their own they’re “wildly insufficient” to promote spiritual growth (87). The medieval church would have said positive things about Scripture and allowed a place for it in spiritual formation. But, like Comer, medieval authorities also maintained that the Word on its own isn’t enough. For them, the real interest, excitement, and efficacy are found in a host of other spiritual practices. For Reformation-minded Christians, God’s Word is always at the center of our piety, both as the key driver of transformation and as the blueprint for our pursuit of spiritual growth. Incoherent Theology Comer’s method in Practicing the Way is theologically promiscuous. He mingles sources from wildly different theological traditions—many mutually incompatible—without acknowledging the tension. While occasionally Comer cites thinkers in the Reformed tradition, like Tim Keller, Rosaria Butterfield, and Tim Chester, he more frequently turns to Roman Catholics (Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, Henri Nouwen), Eastern Orthodox writers (Kallistos Ware, Kallistos Katafygiotis), Quaker mystics (Thomas Kelly), and even a non-Christian spiritualist (Kahlil Gibran). He presents these highly heterogeneous teachers collectively as “masters of the Way of Jesus” (47). The implication is that all these different “spiritual masters” (43) are heading down the same path and toward similar conclusions. That’s simply not the case. For example, at one point he quotes a Catholic writer who mentions the “Blessed Sacrament,” a term that Comer explains as referring to “what Protestants call ‘the Lord’s Supper’” (42). Yet a differing view on the sacraments was at the heart of disagreements during the Reformation. Then, on the same page, Comer quotes Kelly on the topic. Yet the Quakers are notoriously one of the only groups in the Christian tradition to eschew the outward observance of the Lord’s Supper altogether. Comer never suggests there could be any serious conflict among his assembled “spiritual masters of the Way” (43). For Reformation-minded Christians, God’s Word is always at the center of our piety. The result of Comer’s eclecticism is a vision for spiritual formation that doesn’t align with any existing, recognizable stream of historic Christianity. Consider Comer’s high praise for Ware’s Eastern Orthodox spirituality. With reference to Ware’s influential book The Orthodox Way, Comer says, “When I read this absolutely wonderful book, it felt like coming home” (237). Yet Comer’s Practicing the Way lacks, among other things, a substantial reverence for icons, due esteem for Mary as the Theotokos, and a real priesthood standing in apostolic continuity with Jesus himself—all key elements of Eastern Orthodox spirituality. Moreover, if he genuinely felt like he was “coming home” while reading The Orthodox Way, why hasn’t he been received into the Orthodox Church? In part, it seems that identifying consistently with one tradition would hamper Comer’s a la carte approach to spiritual formation. Cafeteria Approach Comer’s overall vision for the Christian life is a pick-what-works-for-you approach. It’s not that he’s a secret Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox proponent hiding things from his readers. Rather, his cafeteria approach is inherently unstable and doesn’t sit comfortably within any established Christian tradition. A Reformed approach to spiritual formation, by contrast, flows out of a consistent commitment to the Bible and the Bible alone as the ultimate rule of faith and practice. That rigorous grounding in the Word provides a consistency and a coherence that has proven durable over many centuries. Insofar as the Reformed tradition has rightly understood Scripture, Practicing the Way represents a serious deviation from a biblical understanding of spiritual formation. As evidenced by Comer’s downplaying of regeneration and union with Christ, an approach to spiritual formation that isn’t anchored to Scripture will drift with whatever theological currents seem attractive at the moment. Perhaps Comer and others are dissatisfied with evangelicalism’s Reformation heritage and wish to reject it. That’s their decision. But they should clearly identify and own that decision.

Hiking after a rainfall, we hit a mud patch so deep we’d have lost our shoes if we’d stepped in it. Thankfully, other hikers had dropped a series of stepping stones. Hopping across them, we arrived on the other side of the mud unsullied. But we didn’t hop from stone to stone randomly; we had a destination in mind—the other side. Stepping stones aren’t meant to leave us in the middle of the morass. Yet that’s how many people around us live, isn’t it? Hopping from life event to life event with no particular destination, no ultimate aim, in mind. Their aimlessness gives us a powerful evangelistic opportunity. Stuck in the Middle Consider an “American dream” life marked by the achievements many deem destinations, but that are really brief stops on a road to nowhere. Study hard in school to get good grades (or work hard at extracurriculars) to get into the right university to get the right degree. Skip from stone to stone—but without arriving. Stepping stones aren’t meant to leave us in the middle of the morass. Yet that’s how many people around us live. After all, what’s the point of the diploma? To get the right job. Given how much of life we spend at work, it’s a huge stone—but not the end. It provides a sense of significance and security, achievement and approval (assuming we perform), but few would claim work’s the goal. We work to make money so we can live the good life. Get a job, get married, get the dream home. Then we can start a family. “I’m doing it for my kids.” Is that the end? No way. With kids, we don’t reach a destination; we just increase the number of travelers on the stepping-stone path. Children don’t break the cycle; we raise them to repeat the cycle. We want them to get good grades so they get into a good school, so they get a well-paying job, so they can buy a house, start a family, and have kids who get good grades and . . . uh oh. We’re still stuck in the middle of the meaningless morass—just stuck together now. With Peggy Lee, the people around us wonder, “Is that all there is?” Meaningless Meandering Ours isn’t the first generation to ask. Three millennia ago, the Teacher repined, “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. (Eccl. 1:2–4, NIV) In moments of transition or reflection, we grasp how meaningless human life is if it’s all there is. Life is a vain, fruitless search for wonder, for significance, for hope that transcends not just mundane life but life—full stop. And if life is all we have, it’s a road to nowhere. That’s exactly what the Teacher learns. He proceeds chronologically across the same stones we traverse, finding at each step that he’s still stuck in the middle. All those years of schooling, applying your mind to study, exploring wisdom? That’s a chasing after the wind (vv. 13–18). Pursuing pleasure, sowing those wild oats before you settle down to responsible family life? You could refuse yourself no pleasure and still discover it’s all meaningless (2:1–11). We’re just buckets with a giant hole in the bottom. We keep trying to fill ourselves to overflowing, but it doesn’t work. The feeling doesn’t last. We go away as empty as when we started. Decades laboring at your job, even if you’re successful and achieve great things? All that “toil and striving” is ultimately meaningless too, because you have to leave it to someone else in the end (vv. 20–23). We’re only in the Teacher’s second chapter, and it’s clear the search is in vain. “Under the sun,” he never arrives. Generations come and go, repeating the same cycle. It’s all just another step on a journey to nowhere, aimless meandering to an indeterminate end. Help Others Arrive How can Christians—who know “the conclusion of the matter” (12:13, NIV), who’ve learned like the Teacher to fear God and find everlasting, all-satisfying joy in him—help friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues get out of the metaphysical morass and onto the firm ground of gospel truth? We know the dream won’t satisfy. We know it’s all drinking stagnant water from cracked cisterns when streams of living water flow nearby (Jer. 2:13). By learning to ask powerful questions, we can help those in our sphere of influence see this. Imagine chatting with a neighbor who’s working too many hours to get that promotion, a friend who enrolled her child in extensive after-school tutoring to get a leg up on the competition, a colleague who’s on his third relationship this year . . . They’re in the middle of the mud but have no idea where the trail picks up—or where it leads. A genuinely curious, open-ended question might unlock their hearts. “If you reach this goal, what will that give you?”  “How will you feel if you don’t get what you want—if you don’t find what you’re looking for?” “What will accomplishing this task do for you?” “What will you do if this doesn’t satisfy—if the good feelings fade faster than you want (like they did last time)?” Such questions could spark thoughtful spiritual reflection: Where am I going—and why? By leading people to contemplate the destination, what they truly desire, we can get them to consider the path they’re on. By leading people to contemplate the destination, we can get them to consider the path they’re on. Are they heading in the right direction or going around in circles in the mud? Even if they get all they want, do all they set out to do, accomplish every goal they made, they’ll still be stuck in the middle. We can help people see that their dreams are too small to soothe the soul’s ache. From there, we can point them to the “chief end,” the golden shore where the stepping stones of faith lead: to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That’s a place we can reach, a destination worth aiming for. When it comes to our deepest desires, God is plenty big. It’s our dream that’s too small.

Your home doesn't need an advanced degree to be smart. These devices will turn it into a high-tech haven through the miracle of modern innovation.

With water being so important to life on Earth, scientists often look for it on exoplanets. But some of those worlds might actually be covered in soot instead.