Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
On the eve of a national election, theologian and retired Anglican bishop N.T. Wright offered a striking challenge to Christian voters, arguing that the belief in modern Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy is, in his words, a totally unbiblical idea, one that has quietly shaped political choices for generations of faithful people.
That question of how faith bends toward the future brings to mind a much older story. Monica prayed desperately that her son Augustine would not leave for a city of corruption. God did not answer as she asked. He went anyway. And it was precisely there, in the place she feared most, that the transformation she had prayed for finally began.
And perhaps no one understood the strange mercy of the unexpected better than William Buckland, who in eighteen twenty four sat with a fragment of ancient jaw and realized the world was far older and stranger than anyone had believed. A theologian staring into deep time, finding not the end of faith, but a more expansive beginning.
That's this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
