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They ask: What happened to you?

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

What happened to me was that I realized I couldn’t make it without Jesus and his Cross. (more…)

Remembering Carl Gans

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

The many friends of Carl Gans, co-founder of the Ananias Circle, mourn his sudden passing last week and extend our loving support to his family. My affection for Carl, and my gratitude to him as an elder brother in Christ, are beyond words. (more…)

Spirituality is not Christianity

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

Colorado this weekend hosts a “Spirituality Conference” celebrating the oneness of all things and, it would seem, damning Christianity with faint praise. (more…)

After fourteen years

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Paul writes of having spent fourteen years, after his conversion on the Damascus road, coming to know Jesus better and preparing for the fulness of his missionary work (more…)

Christmas Taken Seriously

Friday, December 24th, 2010

Profound thoughts on the reason for the season from Ryan Murphy, a professor of Christian Thought at Colorado Christian University where I work. Advent is like our prison door being opened from the outside, (more…)

The tyranny of hurt feelings

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

This post is about the hesitancy, or outright self-censorship, felt by many of us in telling our family and friends why we now follow Jesus instead of Mrs. Eddy. Sometimes that reticence even extends to going on record publicly about our reasons for leaving Christian Science, (more…)

Captured by the Hound of Heaven

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

Here is another in our interview series. On this site in the past, Linda Kramer and Carl Gans have answered my questions about how they know God, why they left Christian Science, (more…)

When Jesus pursues, none escape

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Francis Thompson’s classic poem about Jesus in pursuit, “The Hound of Heaven,” came to mind yesterday after talking with Beth about her husband’s almost-there move from Christian Science to the Cross. (more…)

Each of us must choose

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

Beth, the wife of Dave, whose situation is described in the post just before this one, left a couple of phone messages for me in the hope of talking privately about his dawning faith in Christ, (more…)

Interceding for Dave

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Dave and Beth (not their real names) need our prayers. He is on the doorstep between the Christian Science church and the Body of Christ. She is a devoted believer who follows this website and derives encouragement (more…)

My daily study: Different yet similar

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Does the morning quiet time with reading and prayer, so beloved to many Christian Scientists, go away when you leave Science to become a biblical Christian? It needn’t and shouldn’t. (more…)

Ananias is now on Facebook

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

… and Twitter. Like the obedient disciple in Acts 9:10, we want to go where the Lord sends us and be available to those seeking Him. Social media are one place (more…)

Brother Jim Ritchie looks west

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

God knew what He was doing when two college guys worked the summer of 1962 at a Christian Science camp, then didn’t see each other again until 2010, each having found their way to the Cross in the years between. Jim Ritchie of Alabama (R) was reunited with John Andrews of Colorado this week,

jim-ritchie-031110-small.JPG (more…)

Mrs. Eddy’s Children, 100 Years On

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

As a newer follower of Jesus, I struggled with seeing objectively into my own mental landscape and life experience as Christian Science had shaped them. I felt the need to do this for two reasons. Stepping away from long-familiar thought patterns (more…)

How Christmas undid me

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Christmas is beloved to me a season of new birth personally, as well as a celebration of Jesus’ birth. Over the years as a young adult Christian Scientist, raising our kids, teaching Sunday school, active with Adventure Unlimited and Principia, I found it harder and harder (more…)

Closer to Calvary?

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Sizing Up the Next Generation Fellowship

Lifting up “Jesus Christ, and him crucified,” in the words of I Corinthians 2:2, is unusual for Christian Scientists. But there is a new group in St. Louis who talk more like followers of the cross than Mrs. Eddy’s devotees usually do. What are we to make of them? (more…)

Pray for an open door

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Carl Gans of Santa Barbara, originator of the idea for this website, here concludes the interview he and I began back in May. “Pray that God would open a door of conversation,” he urges in reply to my final question regarding our intercession (more…)

“How spiritual are we?”

Monday, October 12th, 2009

So asks the cover of Parade magazine, Oct. 4 issue, with a big article about their poll of over 1000 Americans. The survey’s key finding that “spirituality” is gaining as religion recedes might be okay with Christian Scientists, (more…)

‘Immersed myself in Scripture’

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Carl Gans, my yokefellow in starting this website (see Philippians 4:3), has contributed the second part of his reply to a blog interview I began with him some weeks ago. (more…)

Hear Lewis’s classic of the faith

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Originally presented as radio talks during the Second World War, C. S. Lewis’s beloved Mere Christianity returned to the airwaves on Easter 2009 with an oral reading by my daughter and me on Backbone Radio, (more…)