(RNS) — In his new book, ‘Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa’s Confessor,’ Michael Battle delves into the ways Tutu’s religious formation shaped a vision that helped topple apartheid ...

To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the ...

Notable theologian and author John Piper has warned Christians not to pursue mysticism or believe that one can connect with God in a supernatural realm to gain hidden knowledge. In a recent episode of ...

It was 1995, and I had just arrived at St. John’s University in New York, fresh from a summer spent at a Hindu monastery. I was on a spiritual quest—a journey sparked, in part, by post-traumatic ...

Once or twice a month, Bernard McGinn receives an email from someone wanting to talk about their “special” experience. Many pose questions like, “How do I know if I’ve really had a mystical encounter ...

Conventional ascetic, mystical theology is based on an affective, purgative, illumined, unitive rising of the soul to God, following paths set forth by Ss. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis ...

Opinion Columnist. This essay is adapted from the forthcoming book “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.” My parents ate health food in my youth, in the days before Whole Foods was everywhere, ...

Rick Doblin had come to believe that psychedelic experiences are the "common core" of all religions, and he wanted to test this thesis. In February 1984, the 31-year-old college student living off a ...

In the smoke-filled cellar cafés and cold-water flats of San Francisco’s waterfront and Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, the word these days is “beat.” Patriarch and prophet of what he calls “the beat ...

“I trust no one will call me a mystic—a name, in its strict theological sense, too high, and in its popular sense (I hope) too vague, to describe me; but it ...