Brian Zahnd
@brianzahnd.bsky.social
Founding pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri; author of eleven books, including The Wood Between the Worlds.
Prayer School number 103 is in John Mellencamp’s “Small Town”—Seymour, Indiana. Amen.
November 22, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Prayer School number 103 is in John Mellencamp’s “Small Town”—Seymour, Indiana. Amen.
“Our every experience of the natural is always already ‘supernatural’ in both origin and end…”
-David Bentley Hart, The Light of Tabor
-David Bentley Hart, The Light of Tabor
November 21, 2025 at 4:11 PM
“Our every experience of the natural is always already ‘supernatural’ in both origin and end…”
-David Bentley Hart, The Light of Tabor
-David Bentley Hart, The Light of Tabor
“The only punishment capable of punishing Hitler, and deterring little boys thirsting for greatness in coming centuries from following his example is such a total transformation of the meaning attached to greatness that he should thereby be excluded from it.” -Simone Weil, 1943
November 15, 2025 at 7:30 PM
“The only punishment capable of punishing Hitler, and deterring little boys thirsting for greatness in coming centuries from following his example is such a total transformation of the meaning attached to greatness that he should thereby be excluded from it.” -Simone Weil, 1943
A wheel of Stilton cheese from England. This is the good stuff, people.
November 15, 2025 at 2:03 AM
A wheel of Stilton cheese from England. This is the good stuff, people.
“…among whom licentiousness was taken for gaiety and cheap cynicism for intelligence.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons
At the beginning of the year I’ll teach a ten-week online class on Dostoevsky’s “Demons.”
It’s not for the faint of heart.
Try wolc.com/demons and you might find more info.
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons
At the beginning of the year I’ll teach a ten-week online class on Dostoevsky’s “Demons.”
It’s not for the faint of heart.
Try wolc.com/demons and you might find more info.
November 6, 2025 at 1:45 AM
“…among whom licentiousness was taken for gaiety and cheap cynicism for intelligence.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons
At the beginning of the year I’ll teach a ten-week online class on Dostoevsky’s “Demons.”
It’s not for the faint of heart.
Try wolc.com/demons and you might find more info.
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons
At the beginning of the year I’ll teach a ten-week online class on Dostoevsky’s “Demons.”
It’s not for the faint of heart.
Try wolc.com/demons and you might find more info.
Word of Life Church was born on All Saints Day 1981. This Sunday we’ll celebrate our 44th anniversary and I’ll preach a sermon called “The Word of Life” (1 John 1:1).
November 1, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Word of Life Church was born on All Saints Day 1981. This Sunday we’ll celebrate our 44th anniversary and I’ll preach a sermon called “The Word of Life” (1 John 1:1).
Random: My photo of the inkwells, pipes, and tobacco of C.S. Lewis.
October 26, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Random: My photo of the inkwells, pipes, and tobacco of C.S. Lewis.
Resist the tyranny of tiny screens. Read big books. 📚
October 23, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Resist the tyranny of tiny screens. Read big books. 📚
In “Demons,” Fyodor Dostoevsky portrays the adherents of Marxist atheism and the adherents of (Russian) Christian nationalism as both under the sway of demonic isms.
October 23, 2025 at 12:48 AM
In “Demons,” Fyodor Dostoevsky portrays the adherents of Marxist atheism and the adherents of (Russian) Christian nationalism as both under the sway of demonic isms.
Any attempt to use Jesus Christ to serve some nation, politics, ideology, ism, or cause, other than the divine mission to reconcile all things so that in the end God is all in all, is to reduce Jesus Christ to a false idol.
October 21, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Any attempt to use Jesus Christ to serve some nation, politics, ideology, ism, or cause, other than the divine mission to reconcile all things so that in the end God is all in all, is to reduce Jesus Christ to a false idol.
Peri’s photo from the car as we drove to the mountains last month.
October 16, 2025 at 4:37 AM
Peri’s photo from the car as we drove to the mountains last month.
This Sunday I begin a new three-part series on the story of Job: DARK AS MIDNIGHT
October 8, 2025 at 3:34 PM
This Sunday I begin a new three-part series on the story of Job: DARK AS MIDNIGHT
A Christianity that promotes the interests of empire* is a Christianity that rides the back of the beast as the whore of Babylon.
October 5, 2025 at 3:48 AM
A Christianity that promotes the interests of empire* is a Christianity that rides the back of the beast as the whore of Babylon.
(The painting is Rembrandt's "Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem," 1690. I have a print of this painting in my study.)
October 4, 2025 at 9:47 PM
(The painting is Rembrandt's "Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem," 1690. I have a print of this painting in my study.)
The prophets and psalmists of lament show us how to find faith and hold on to hope in the time of tears. I'll preach on this tomorrow.
October 4, 2025 at 9:47 PM
The prophets and psalmists of lament show us how to find faith and hold on to hope in the time of tears. I'll preach on this tomorrow.
This photo is upside down. It is also an illustration about the nature of reality and illusion, heaven and earth, the eternal and the temporal. I'll talk about this next week at our Mountain Retreat where the theme is "In Search of Narnia."
September 25, 2025 at 2:16 PM
This photo is upside down. It is also an illustration about the nature of reality and illusion, heaven and earth, the eternal and the temporal. I'll talk about this next week at our Mountain Retreat where the theme is "In Search of Narnia."
The rapture happened. I’m in heaven. 😎
September 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM
The rapture happened. I’m in heaven. 😎
“If any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name of Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.”
~The Last Battle
~The Last Battle
September 15, 2025 at 4:51 PM
“If any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name of Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.”
~The Last Battle
~The Last Battle
When theology is forced to bow to a particular political ideology, you are going to get bad theology. The Subject of theology cannot be accurately described or curtailed by the politics of this age.
September 13, 2025 at 3:21 AM
When theology is forced to bow to a particular political ideology, you are going to get bad theology. The Subject of theology cannot be accurately described or curtailed by the politics of this age.
Just arrived in Chicago to participate in the Church at the Crossroads Conference.
To be Christian does not entail the embrace of an aberrant eschatology used to justify war crimes; to be Christian is to walk this world in a deliberate attempt to imitate the Prince of Peace.
To be Christian does not entail the embrace of an aberrant eschatology used to justify war crimes; to be Christian is to walk this world in a deliberate attempt to imitate the Prince of Peace.
September 11, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Just arrived in Chicago to participate in the Church at the Crossroads Conference.
To be Christian does not entail the embrace of an aberrant eschatology used to justify war crimes; to be Christian is to walk this world in a deliberate attempt to imitate the Prince of Peace.
To be Christian does not entail the embrace of an aberrant eschatology used to justify war crimes; to be Christian is to walk this world in a deliberate attempt to imitate the Prince of Peace.
Seeing Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) tonight at the Midland Theatre was just what I needed. The song is “Her Mercy”—a song I used a few years ago in Finding God In The Music.
September 11, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Seeing Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) tonight at the Midland Theatre was just what I needed. The song is “Her Mercy”—a song I used a few years ago in Finding God In The Music.
“I will draw all things to myself”
Detail of a stained glass window in St. Etheldreda's church, London.
(We had a nice chat with the priest.)
Detail of a stained glass window in St. Etheldreda's church, London.
(We had a nice chat with the priest.)
September 4, 2025 at 2:10 AM
“I will draw all things to myself”
Detail of a stained glass window in St. Etheldreda's church, London.
(We had a nice chat with the priest.)
Detail of a stained glass window in St. Etheldreda's church, London.
(We had a nice chat with the priest.)
The actual cover. 🤦🏻♂️
September 2, 2025 at 12:48 PM
The actual cover. 🤦🏻♂️