Christianity

Orthodox Church is the Bridge that Can Unite Russian and American People

Orthodox Church Bridge Russia and America Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia –
The task of our Churches is to pray and work in order that the Lord would grant His mercy on the peoples of our countries, so that God’s strength would make moral basics stronger, which originate in God’s morals of the Bible, and so that the relations between our countries would strengthen based on common moral values.

His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and the Most Reverend Tikhon, Metropolitan of Canada and All America, concelebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on December 4, 2014 – the feast day of the Entrance to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos. Following the divine service, the Primate of the Russian Church delivered a sermon:

I would like to congratulate all of you, dear Reverend Vladyka, Emenences, fathers, and brothers, on the feast day of the Entrance to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos! [Read more…]

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Transformation of a Homosexual: What Change Looks Like Through Jesus Christ

Sin No Longer Master, Christ Helps Homosexuals Renounce Sinby David Kyle Foster –
In a recent conference on homosexuality put on by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in Nashville, I was shocked and deeply saddened at the absence of those who could speak on the topic of “change” for the homosexual. Where were they? They were all sitting in the audience, ministry leaders who have been on the front lines of helping the homosexual for decades, uninvited to share about the power of Jesus Christ to heal the brokenness that causes homosexual confusion.

The message was loud and clear: “Dude, if you come to Christ, there’s no hope that you can change, so get ready for a life of celibacy, ’cause it’s your only option.”

Meanwhile, dozens of former homosexuals, many now married with children, sat in the audience unable to share the truth about the power of Christ to transform lives. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Baptist leaders were spending hours “dialoguing” with leaders of the so-called “gay Christian” movement. It broke my heart. [Read more…]

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Our Salvation is in the Hands of God

O Plowman of Christ, plow and re-plow your soulSt. Nikolai Velimirovich –
“The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but salvation is in the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31).

We are obligated to prepare ourselves but our success depends on God. All of our preparation is only a proposal to God but the proposal does not decide, but God decides. That is why people wisely say according to their experience: man proposes and God disposes. O Soldier of Christ, prepare your mind as a good horse, arm your heart with virtues, temper your will with mortifications, but know – that “salvation is in the Lord.”

O Merchant of Christ, practice good trade every day, exchanging the material for the spiritual, the earthly for the heavenly and mortality for immortality, but know – that “salvation is in the Lord.”

O Plowman of Christ, plow and re-plow your soul, sow the good evangelical seed on it every day, weed out the field of your soul from weeds, watch over it, but know that “salvation is in the Lord.” [Read more…]

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Putting on the Armor of God: Being a Warrior When It’s Popular to Be a Weaner

Putting on the Armor of God, Be Brave Be Courageousby Fr. Thaddaeus Hardenbrook –
Being a warrior for Christ has no minimum age or athletic qualifications. All warriors for Christ, however, must want to “be men” or “be manly”. It means to be what a human is really meant to be: brave, courageous, and authentic in obedience to God.

Saint Nestor was only a teenager when he decided he’d had enough of the local Christians being slaughtered in forced combat against a giant named Lyaeus. The Emperor Maximian had set up a raised platform in the center of Thessaloniki where he forced Christians to fight for their lives against the seemingly unconquerable Vandal mercenary “who was a beast in both appearance and character.”

Nestor was thin and not very tall, but apparently that did not concern him. He visited Saint Demetrios in prison and took his blessing to challenge Lyaeus. The saint made the sign of the cross over his head and heart, prophesying, “You will both be victorious and suffer for Christ.” [Read more…]

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The Bible and the Poor: Jesus Did Not Preach Communism

The Bible Jesus Christ and the Poorby Robert Klein Engler –

In light of the continuing misunderstanding of Pope Francis by the progressive media, it’s time to reconsider the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark 14:7, “For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always.”

This verse is echoed by verse 15:11 in Deuteronomy, “For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.’”

What on earth does this mean? The poor you will always have with you. How can that fact stated by Jesus be, when the progressive ideology and the advocates of social justice argue that it’s government’s job to abolish poverty and further income equality?

Maybe Jesus was referring to the “poor in spirit?” They could always be with us and that would not argue against a government from taxing and redistributing wealth. We know income equality may not bring happiness. You could make as much on your job as your neighbor, and still be poor in spirit. [Read more…]

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The Dark Ages: Pagans Turned Out the Lights, Not The Church

Dark Ages: Pagans Turned Out the Lights, Not The Churchby Fr. Lawrence Farley –
The Dark Ages, insofar as they were dark, were darkened by the barbarian invasions that inundated the western Roman Empire, and that it was only in the Church and monasteries that any light was preserved.

Among the literature of those who make it their main business to vilify the Christians, perhaps no concept has served a more useful purpose than the idea of “the Dark Ages.” The Dark Ages, according to this reading of history, were those centuries in which the Church was culturally ascendant, with the inevitable result that civilization sunk into superstition, ignorance, obscurantism, and moral decadence. Here everything that was bad about the world is laid at the Church’s door, especially the decline of Science (with a capital “S”), which apparently had been going great guns until the Church took over.

As evidence of the Church’s war against Science, enlightenment, tolerance, and reason in general, the name of Galileo is usually bandied about, along with the notion that everyone in the Dark Ages thought that the world was flat. It was from this ecclesiastical abyss that Science eventually pulled us all out, saving the world from the Church and restoring civilization. But as we talk about the Dark Ages, it is worth asking how the Roman Empire of the west came to be so dark in the first place? [Read more…]

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Jesus Calms the Storms of Life

Jesus Calms the Storms of LifeWhen one forgets that our lives are in the hands of the Lord we tend to presume a certain “exemption” from life’s trials. It is then difficult to be able to live through difficult experiences and to view them as an opportunity to express our faith and our faithful trust in the Lord who never leaves us without consolation.

Last Sunday’s liturgy spoke of the mustard seed that was seemingly unimportant, but grew to become a tree in which the birds of the air found rest. Similarly, in this week’s liturgy, a man’s faith, whilst seeming “small” or weak, is able to recognise God’s power over evil and generate hope and consolation in our turbulent lives. This hope and consolation comes from Christ’s presence in history!

Today’s liturgy is dominated by the account of the calming of the sea. St Mark’s account seems to be the ideal companion for the first reading. Job’s outburst calls to God for an explanation of his suffering to which God responds by reminding him of His omnipotence which dominates everything, even the forces of nature. “Who pent up the sea behind closed doors?” (Job 38:8) [Read more…]

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How Are the Passions Born and How We Fight Against Them?

How Are the Passions Born and How to Fight Against Themby Andrei Gorbachev –
Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground, reasoned one of the friends of Job the Much-Suffering (Job 5:6). Because for the Christian, woe and trouble is first of all sin and the passion that precedes it, it could be said that passion “does not come from the dust”, and sin “does not grow out of the ground”, but rather springs from the soil of the human heart. The Lord Himself warned us when He said, From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man (Mark 7:21-23). That is, according to the Gospel teaching, not only is sin what is committed in deed, but even the longing for sin—which we call passion—is not altogether innocent by itself and is also a sin.

Having achieved victory in the struggle with their passions, the holy fathers of the Church left us a detailed description of this struggle. Part of this was their scrupulous study of the stages of the passions’ formation in the human soul. [Read more…]

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Pillars of Modern American Conservatism

Pillars of Modern American Conservatismby Alfred Regnery –
The basic foundations of American conservatism consist of liberty and freedom, tradition and order, rule of law, and belief in God.

Over the past half century, conservatism has become the dominant political philosophy in the United States. Newspaper and television political news stories more often than not will mention the word conservative. Almost every Republican running for office—whether for school board or U.S. senator—will try to establish his place on the political spectrum based on how conservative he is. Even Democrats sometimes distinguish among members of their own party in terms of conservatism.

Although conservatism as we know it today is a relatively new movement—it emerged after World War II and only became a political force in the 1960s—it is based on ideas that are as old as Western civilization itself. The intellectual foundations on which this movement has been built stretch back to antiquity, were further developed during the Middle Ages and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, and were ultimately formulated into a coherent political philosophy at the time of the founding of the United States. In a real sense, conservatism is Western civilization. [Read more…]

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The Importance of Saying ‘Merry Christmas’

Importance of Saying Merry Christmas by Dennis Prager –
The nearly universal change from wishing fellow Americans “Merry Christmas” to wishing them “Happy Holidays” is a very significant development in American life.

Proponents of “Happy Holidays” argue that it’s no big deal at all, and that proponents of “Merry Christmas” are making a mountain out of a molehill, especially when proponents say that the substitution of “Happy Holidays” is part of a “war on Christianity.”

But the “Happy Holidays” advocates want it both ways. They dismiss opponents as hysterical while, at the same time, relentlessly pushing to rid America of “Merry Christmas.”

So, then, which is it? Is the substitution of “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas” important or not?

The answer is obvious. It is very important. That’s why the anti “Merry Christmas” crowd has worked so hard to make this greeting a thing of the past. And they have been extraordinarily successful. [Read more…]

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