The Narnian

An Act of God

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:05:14 GMT

The yellow sign in the old sycamore on his property confounded Amos Hatfield.

It looked similar to a cross. But, strangely, the stems curled around each other. It looked as if it were drawn by someone who forgot what a cross looked like.

He ran his fingers across the wound, carved deep into the bark of the tree. It bled sap. And just under it, written in …

Coming Around the Bend

J.M. Robinson — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 04:19:27 GMT

The Metaphysics of Cutting Grass

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:20:01 GMT

Mowing the lawn is a deeply metaphysical experience.

I don’t know about you, but I am very particular about my grass. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can’t. But it’s a weekly ritual at this point. And, I refuse to hire it out. I refuse to accept someone else generously cutting it. I have to cut it, because something is missing if my hands don’t push the…

One Last Push

J.M. Robinson — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 02:44:56 GMT

Good evening, friends.

It’s been a few weeks. That’s because I’ve been consumed with the renovation of the 100-year-old chapel we purchased, and we are now a week or two from the finish line. We’ve also hit a wall.

I want you to picture what we walked into. The chapel had sat empty for nearly a decade. Someone had broken in and torn the copper wiring out …

The Edge of the World

J.M. Robinson — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 02:16:25 GMT

My family just got back from Topsail Island in North Carolina. We spent the week there, and it was a refreshing time. It was the first time we had ever been to Topsail, and I recommend it if you’re on the East Coast looking for a family-friendly place to vacation.

Experience-wise, there wasn’t a whole lot going on. It was very slow-paced, and there were…

Rituals That Tell No Story

J.M. Robinson — Tue, 26 May 2026 20:11:43 GMT

A lot of Evangelicals turn their nose up at ritual. I can tell you it isn’t because we lack it. We’re as ritualistic as anyone, or to put it better in this context, as liturgical. We just don’t know we’re doing it.

I came up in the church planting world during the Mars Hill years. In those rooms, the Sunday Gathering got plenty of intentional thought. Th…

The Wizard's Grandson

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 18 May 2026 00:36:09 GMT

I had a conversation yesterday with a naturalist. It was pretty interesting because I don’t really encounter it the way I did back in the earlier part of the 2000s. Truth be told, I encounter a lot more paganism and new age. It was kind of like talking to someone who didn’t know the ship had already set sail and had missed it.

I don’t think he quite kne…

We Are Not Disenchanted

J.M. Robinson — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:41:48 GMT

Introduction

My thinking on this has shifted over the past few years.

For a long time, I used the word disenchantment. I borrowed it from Charles Taylor, who borrowed it from Max Weber, and I deployed it the way most writers in the re-enchantment conversation deploy it. We are disenchanted. We have lost the world our ancestors lived in. The cosmos that wa…

The Secret Commonwealth

J.M. Robinson — Tue, 12 May 2026 04:03:30 GMT

Forest by Johannes Plenio.

Introduction

In the mountains of southern West Virginia, the miners still leave food for the blue caps. It’s actually more common than you’d think, to be honest.

The blue caps are small. They appear as pale blue flames in the dark of the deep mines. The men who worked the seams in Logan and Mingo and McDowell believed that if yo…

Strange Beings From Time & Space

J.M. Robinson — Fri, 08 May 2026 03:07:28 GMT

Introduction

At 7:01 PM tonight, the New York Post reported that the Trump administration will begin releasing UFO files tomorrow, with weekly waves to follow.

I found out when I got home from running to our new church building to grab a meter number for the power company. Earlier in the day, a pastor had texted asking if I’d written any essays on UFOs an…

Saints of West Virginia

J.M. Robinson — Tue, 05 May 2026 18:09:23 GMT

In Search of Saints

This really came about as a convergence of several things in my life. One was the death of my father.

The next thing was ’s writings.

In around 2021-2023, Paul began writing about what he called “The Wild Saints.” In 2023, he also started writing about Holy Wells. I was fascinated by his writings and have returned to them frequently ov…

When You Write about 666 and Accidentally Summon a Businessman

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 21:15:19 GMT

Much ink has been spilled over the number of the beast. I recall growing up being taught that it was a mark that people would take or die. Perhaps a microchip of some sort or a barcode or something along those lines.

Then when I became a Christian at the age of 18 years old, the churches my soon to be wife and I attended didn’t really teach anything muc…

Of Churches, Stars, and Candlesticks

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:39:23 GMT

Prologue

Revelation 1 opens up telling readers exactly what this is and who the writer is.

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and…

The Son of God Goes Forth To War

J.M. Robinson — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 02:03:44 GMT

Introduction

Our church is on the verge of finishing up the Book of Genesis. Afterward, we’re going to spend probably a year in the Book of Revelation. We have a lot of ground to cover once we get there, but I’ve went ahead and jumped in to lay some of the groundwork. I thought that it was worth sharing here, especially when it comes to symbolism.

It’s p…

On Earth as it is in Heaven

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 19:12:04 GMT

At the heart of the Christian Metaphysic is the reality of “on earth as it is in heaven.” In a sense, you can think of the earth (that which is below) being an icon or an image of heaven (that which is above).

You can see this in the cosmology of the Bible. On the first day of creation, God created the heavens and the earth. This is the “highest” or “th…

Our Church Just Bought a 100 Year Old Chapel

J.M. Robinson — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:35:04 GMT

A World of Reactive Sons

J.M. Robinson — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 01:38:55 GMT

Introduction

This morning at church, I preached from Genesis 34. To say that spending time with the passage and meditating on it throughout the week disturbed me would be an understatement.

Whenever I dug into start preparing to preach it, I opened the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and found was a note from the editor saying that there wasn’t…

The Palm Tree and The Phoenix

J.M. Robinson — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 23:23:36 GMT

Phoenix in a Date Palm Tree: Mosaic from the Apse at St. Praxedes Basilica, Mid-9th Century, Rome

Happy Palm Sunday, everyone.

This morning at New Haven Church we preached through Matthew’s account of the Triumphal Entry in Matthew 21. Going back through my notes from the past decade, I was reminded that I spent quite a bit of time in John’s account as we…

The Art of Saying "No"

J.M. Robinson — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 20:17:57 GMT

Introduction

We are in the wilderness with Jesus.

Forty days. Forty nights. No bread. No water from the brook of Cherith. No manna from heaven. Only the vast, rocky silence of Judea and the enemy of God’s people waiting.

The text tells us something important before Satan opens his mouth, which is that Jesus was hungry. The Son of God, in whom all the fulln…

Rise of the Machines

J.M. Robinson — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 04:52:51 GMT

I’ve been a bit quiet over Lent. That has been purposeful. But, I hopped on to tell you that we’re heading toward a very strange future. Over the past week or so, I’ve been keeping up with the US Military’s use of Anthropic’s Claude in the Maudro Raid. I found it interesting because I grew up on James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Whenever I re…