Christianity

What’s so appealing about Orthodoxy?

March 20, 2011March 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Rod Dreher –

I came to Orthodoxy in 2006, a broken man. I had been a devoutly observant and convinced Roman Catholic for years, but had my faith shattered in large part by what I had learned as a reporter covering the sex abuse scandal. It had been my assumption that my theological convictions would protect the core of my faith through any trial, but the knowledge I struggled with wore down my ability to believe in the ecclesial truth claims of the Roman church (I wrote in detail about that drama here). For my wife and me, Protestantism was not an option, given what we knew about church history, and given our convictions about sacramental theology. That left Orthodoxy as the only safe harbor from the tempest that threatened to capsize our Christianity.

In truth, I had longed for Orthodoxy for some time, for the same reasons I, as a young man, found my way into the Catholic Church. It seemed to me a rock of stability in a turbulent sea of relativism and modernism overtaking Western Christianity. [Read more…]

Distant Recall

March 19, 2011March 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Ken Myers –
In his 1983 Templeton address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn began by recounting a memory from his childhood. “I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why this has happened.’”

As a telegraphic summary of the source of Russian ills under communism, it would be hard to improve on those four initial words. Since Solzhenitsyn spoke them, they have served many Christian pundits in the West as a description of the disorders within liberal democratic regimes. But while this slogan boasts a certain scrappy punchiness, it doesn’t offer us much help in figuring out how the memory lapse in question was provoked. [Read more…]

Social Leveling: Socialism and Secularism

March 16, 2011March 17, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Hunter Baker –

Social leveling is something that we typically associate with the destruction of material differences between human beings. It is the socialist dream of a classless society in which distinctions, usually the result of economic variation, are made irrelevant. The state, empowered by the political action of the masses (or at least a group claiming to speak for the masses), works to gain control of the wealth and property of a society and then to redistribute it in such a way as to make people equal. It should be obvious that this type of action vastly increases the power of the state because it becomes the effective owner of all property.

Although socialism aims to wipe out material inequality, it may merely present a new opportunity for sin. James Madison noted that taking control of the property in a state will not make people equal for more than a very short time. They have different talents, abilities, and levels of energy. A new elite will assert itself, just as it has in every nation with a communist revolution.[Read more…]

We Should Not Despair, Even If We Sin Many Times

March 11, 2011March 11, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by St. Peter of Damascus –
Even if you are not what you should be, you should not despair. It is bad enough that you have sinned; why in addition do you wrong God by regarding Him in your ignorance as powerless? Is He, who for your sake created the great universe that you behold, incapable of saving your soul? And if you say that this fact, as well as His incarnation, only makes your condemnation worse, then repent; and He will receive your repentance, as He accepted that of the prodigal son (cf. Luke 15:20) and the prostitute (cf. Luke 7:37-50).

But if repentance is too much for you, and you sin out of habit even when you do not want to, show humility like the publican (cf. Luke 18:13): this is enough to ensure your salvation. For he who sins without repenting, yet does not despair, must of necessity regard himself as the lowest of creatures, and will not dare to judge or censure anyone. Rather, he will marvel at God’s compassion, and will be full of gratitude towards his Benefactor, and so receive many other blessings as well. [Read more…]

What Is Hell Like? Does It Even Exist?

March 1, 2011March 2, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

Hell is what happens when human beings say to the God in whose image they were made, we don’t want to worship You. We don’t want our human life to be shaped by worshiping You. We don’t want who we are as humans to be transformed by the love of Jesus dying and rising for us. We don’t want any of that. We want to stay as we are and do our own thing.
[Read more…]

Morality Is Not Hate

February 26, 2011February 26, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Fr. Mark Hodges –
This week, U.S. Attorney General Holder announced Obama’s decision not to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was passed by a bipartisan overwhelming majority and signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. Significantly, the Attorney General described anti-sodomy beliefs as “animus,” which means “vehement emnity,” “hatred” or “ill will.”

This echoes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s anti-Christian view, stated in a Supreme Court decision upholding the ejection a Christian legal group for not allowing open homosexuals in leadership positions, that “Condemnation of same-sex intimacy is, in fact, a condemnation of gay people,” and “Our (Supreme Court) decisions decline to distinguish between status and conduct.” (By this reasoning, if you don’t support gluttony, you “condemn” overweight people.)

The ACLU has hailed the Obama Administration’s decision as “the tipping point in the gay rights movement.” Indeed, it may be. It is certainly yet another turn toward moral insanity, as the Fathers and Mothers of the Church predicted, when the world calls evil “good” and good “evil.” [Read more…]

The Catholic Church and the Left

February 20, 2011February 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Jack Kerwick –
My pastor’s homily was but the latest confirmation of that what many an astute observer has long observed: the “progressivism” of secular leftism has made sizable inroads into the Catholic Church. This is no mean feat. In fact, the significance of the left’s infiltration into this institution has gone largely unnoticed.

Whatever one may think of its theology and ecclesiology, the cold heart fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church is not just one more institution among others. Structurally and doctrinally, it is the emblem par excellence of the ancient world, a continual reminder to our generation that its life did not begin yesterday, and that Western civilization would be unrecognizable, and probably nonexistent, without it, the Catholic Church reminds us as well that we are living off of a cultural capital that was millennia in the making. Its unabashed affirmation of the centrality of tradition to right conduct, its hierarchical conception of authority, its exclusion of females and homosexuals from the priesthood, and its demand that its clergy take a vow of celibacy are some of the more salient respects in which the Catholic Church has not only distinguished itself from the leveling impulses of our age, but resisted them. [Read more…]

The Art of Living: Patience and Perseverance

February 8, 2011February 9, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Edward P. Sri –

How do you respond when “bad things” happen to you? When you experience disappointment or setbacks? When you are hurt by something someone said?

When experiencing sorrow, we might be tempted to close in on ourselves. We might allow negative emotions to gnaw at us. We might fail to be attentive to others’ needs because we are so preoccupied with our troubles. We might also become sluggish in our responsibilities, not giving the best of ourselves at work and with our family.

Some people simply are not pleasant to be around when they experience sorrow. They become gloomy and grumpy, and might even let their frustrations out on others.

Human beings cannot escape suffering in this world. However, the way we face life’s sorrows is a question of moral character. Do we allow sorrow to dominate our existence? [Read more…]

Debunking the Galileo Myth

January 30, 2011January 31, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Dinesh D’Souza – (Townhall)
Many people have uncritically accepted the idea that there is a longstanding war between science and religion. We find this war advertised in many of the leading atheist tracts such as those by Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Every few months one of the leading newsweeklies does a story on this subject. Little do the peddlers of this paradigm realize that they are victims of nineteenth-century atheist propaganda.

About a hundred years ago, two anti-religious bigots named John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White wrote books promoting the idea of an irreconcilable conflict between science and God. The books were full of facts that have now been totally discredited by scholars. But the myths produced by Draper and Dickson continue to be recycled. They are believed by many who consider themselves educated, and they even find their way into the textbooks. In this article I expose several of these myths, focusing especially on the Galileo case, since Galileo is routinely portrayed as a victim of religious persecution and a martyr to the cause of science. [Read more…]

The Sheep and the Goats: Work and Service to Others

January 29, 2011January 31, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Jordan Ballor –
In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31–46), Jesus differentiates between those who have done good to others and those who have not. The king, taking the place of Christ in the parable, says that “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Whatever good was done was counted as being done to the king, and whatever bad was done was counted the same way. And on this basis the king separates the righteous sheep and the unrighteous goats. The goats “go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” It is natural to think that the good the sheep do to others (“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink…”) refers to special acts of kindness, things that are only done occasionally and usually within a charitable context.

Lester DeKoster, in his book Work: The Meaning of Your Life—A Christian Perspective, provides a refreshing understanding of this parable. He writes that the good Jesus refers to includes these special acts of charity, but also refers to the service we do every day within the context of work. [Read more…]