Newspaper Columns
Published columns by Philip G. Roets
What Does It Mean to Pray?
Prayer is not a technique for getting what we want from God. It is a relationship — a conversation between a creature and its Creator. Like any relationship, it requires time, honesty, and a willingness to listen as well as speak...
The Bible and Modern Life
Some people assume the Bible is irrelevant to contemporary life — a collection of ancient stories with little to say to the twenty-first century. Nothing could be further from the truth. The questions the Bible asks are the questions every human being asks...
On Forgiveness
Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood words in the Christian vocabulary. It is not the same as forgetting, or pretending that harm was not done. It is the decision to release another person from the debt they owe us — for our own sake as much as theirs...
The Meaning of Christmas
Christmas has become so encrusted with sentiment and commerce that it is easy to lose sight of what it actually celebrates: the claim that God became a human being. This is the most audacious claim in the history of religion...
Growing Old Gracefully
I am in my late eighties now, and I have been thinking about what it means to age well. The secret, I think, is gratitude — the daily practice of noticing what is good and beautiful in one's life, however diminished it may have become...