MSI Press Blog

From A Theology for the Rest of Us by Arthur Yavelberg .  If you have any curiosity about such questions: “Why are these things here?” “Who put them here?” and “What are these things for?” then you are asking the kinds of questions that lead you to a book like this. Available at:  Amazon (paperback and e-book) Barnes & Noble MSI Press webstore (25% discount with coupon code FF25) Book description If God exists and is good, why is there evil? Avoiding such questions underlies the spiritual emptiness and anxiety in today's world. A Theology for the Rest of Us explores how to approach the divine through Eastern and Western religious traditions without dogma, challenging readers to "be you lamps unto yourselves." In a time of internecine wars and all kinds of abuse of authority and trust, too many good, thoughtful people are "voting with their feet" and turning away from organized religion. Popular "spirituality"-a sort of mysticism-lite articulate...

  An encounter with God rarely announces itself with fanfare. It may arrive in silence, in crisis, in beauty, or in the ordinary rhythm of a day. Yet when it happens—when a person truly meets the divine—the axis of life tilts. What once seemed central begins to shift, and what once felt peripheral becomes luminous. 1. The Disruption of Certainty To encounter God is to be interrupted. The tidy architecture of belief, identity, and control suddenly feels too small. You realize that the divine does not fit inside your categories—it dismantles them. This disruption is not destruction; it’s revelation. It exposes the scaffolding of self that was never meant to bear the full weight of meaning. 2. The Reorientation of Desire Transformation begins when desire itself changes. The encounter awakens a hunger not for possession or achievement, but for presence. You start to crave integrity, compassion, truthfulness, and mercy—not as moral duties, but as the natural language of love. The heart ...

  Hinduism and Christianity both seek union with the Divine, yet they imagine that union in profoundly different ways. One sees God as personal and incarnate; the other as infinite and manifold. Both traditions ask the same question — What is ultimate reality? — but answer it through distinct visions of the sacred. 1. The Nature of God Christianity teaches one God — personal, eternal, and revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hinduism speaks of the Brahman , the infinite, formless reality underlying all existence. Within Hinduism, God can appear as many deities — Vishnu, Shiva, Devi — each expressing aspects of the one divine source. Christianity insists on one divine personhood; Hinduism embraces divine multiplicity within unity. 2. Creation and the World Christianity sees creation as a deliberate act of God — the world is distinct from its Creator. Hinduism sees creation as an emanation of Brahman — the world is not separate from the Divine but a manifestation of it. In ...