Christianity

The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience

American Orthodox Institute | by Fr. Johannes Jacobse | Nov. 22, 2009
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On November 22, 2009 group of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant leaders unveiled a document called “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience” that affirms the traditional Christian teaching concerning abortion, homosexual marriage, and religious freedom. The Declaration asserts that these three issues (sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, and freedom of worship) are under assault in western Democracies and call Christians into non-violent resistance against the injustices and, if necessary, non-violent non-compliance with the laws that would require a Christian to violate his conscience. (Read full text.)

The Declaration opens:

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are (1) the sanctity of human life, (2) the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and (3) the rights of conscience and religious liberty…We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

[Read more…]

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Hope Knows No Recession

BreakPoint | by Stephen Reed | Nov. 3, 2009

A Christian Virtue Highly Prized – In an extended recession like we are facing now, with people having a difficult time finding work after months of searching, promoting hope can seem rather saccharine, even unfeeling. Indeed, God sided with Job over his friends when they chided Job for feeling devastated at his many losses. Setbacks and tragedies are all terribly real, and to ignore a friend’s losses isn’t being much of a friend at all. [Read more…]

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Idol Worship, Counterfeit Gods

BreakPoint | by Marcia Segelstein | Oct. 27, 2009

What we worship defines us and controls us. And sometimes figuring out what we really worship isn’t easy. Timothy Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and author of the just-released book, Counterfeit Gods. He writes that while some cultures still practice idol worship in the traditional sense, “internal idol worship, within the heart, is universal.”

Anything and everything we turn to in order to satisfy our deepest needs and longings can become idols. Even good things such as family, love, and morality become idols when they take the place of God. As Keller writes, “If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.” [Read more…]

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Four Characteristics of Good Orthodox Preaching

The Preachers Institute | by Fr. Jonathan Cholcher | May. 29, 2009

Orthodox preaching needs to be good preaching. To be good, Orthodox preaching must not only deliver good content, but it must strive to make the hearers good. Therefore, good Orthodox preaching is the Gospel (lit., good news) proclaimed and lived.

Four characteristics mark good Orthodox preaching:
1. Christ crucified and risen;
2. the language, or rationale, of Scripture;
3. plain discourse; and
4. attention to the experience of salvation through the Gospel. [Read more…]

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That The Bishops Be Blameless

Notes on Arab Orthodoxy | by Metropolitan Georges Khodr | Oct. 17, 2009

One who sees himself as nothing becomes something when spiritual men say it to him. No one approaches the divine glory by his own power. The divine glory pulls him in and if a person approaches it, he feels that he is nothing and he remains effaced in his own eyes until the Day of Reckoning. Indeed, each one of us needs to know his own talents because in this is a recognition of God’s gift. But one is lost if he thinks that his talents are his own possession. They only exist on account of God’s favor, which He takes back when He so wishes.

Thus in the Church of God we accept each responsibility as a gift. This is the meaning of service and service comes down to you from above. If you are entrusted with it, don’t allow yourself to feel that you deserve it. [Read more…]

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Become Like a Little Child

BreakPoint | by Paul Miller | Sep. 16, 2009

On more than one occasion, Jesus tells his disciples to become like little children.

The most famous is when the young mothers try to get near Jesus so he can bless their infants. When the disciples block them, Jesus rebukes his disciples sharply. “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:14-15). Jesus’ rebuke would have surprised the disciples. It would have seemed odd. Children in the first century weren’t considered cute or innocent. Only since the nineteenth-century Romantic era have we idolized children. [Read more…]

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Without God We are Nothing

by + Cardinal George Pell (Archbishop of Sydney) | Oct. 4, 2009
Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House

My claims this afternoon are simple. It is more reasonable to believe in God than to reject the hypothesis of God by appealing to chance; more reasonable also to believe than to escape into agnosticism.

Goodness, truth and beauty call for an explanation as do the principles of mathematics, physics, and the purpose-driven miracles of biology which run through our universe. The human capacities to recognize these qualities of truth, goodness and beauty, to invent and construct, also call for an explanation.

The Irish philosopher Brendan Purcell cites the frequently used quotation from Einstein that: ‘The one thing that is unintelligible about the universe is its intelligibility”[1] ; and he might have added the fact that human intelligences are able to strive to understand the universe is also unintelligible of and by itself. [Read more…]

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Getting to Know An Unknown God

OrthodoxyToday | by John Kapsalis | Oct. 2009

You could almost imagine Paul, with his battered and bruised legs, jumping with a happy ‘Eureka!’ This, finally, was the answer to everyone’s prayers. The unknown God of the Athenians was the one true God. And Paul preached this unknown God to the Athenians and to people everywhere he went. This same unknown God is the one that Christians believe, worship, proclaim and die for. Whew! That takes care of that. But wait a minute.

Who is this God? Who is this unknown God that has touched all of world history? Who is this being for whom so much ink has been spilled trying to understand? Well, the answer is (and must be) essentially unknown.

Yes I know, Scripture has revealed God to be the Lord of all creation, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I know that God IS. But there is still so much I don’t know. This unknown God also chose to become a man and live among us, only to be spit upon, punched, ridiculed and violently killed—all because He loves me. [Read more…]

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Education Normal

Touchstone Magazine | by Mark T. Mitchell | September 2009

“Are you ever afraid that homeschooling your kids will make them, um, oddballs?” We were staring into the campfire. The kids had all been tucked more or less comfortably into their sleeping bags, and we parents were savoring the opportunity to talk. With the cool night crowding us closer to the fire, the conversation was lively, though tinged by a reflective mood.

As anyone who is the parent of small children will know, the conversation eventually turned to kids. Soon we were talking about how to raise godly children in a culture that, in many ways, seems intent on undermining their faith. And not only their faith. Many of today’s cultural forces create impediments to a sound education as well as a solid faith. These must be resisted. But that persistent question remains. [Read more…]

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Environmental Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God

BreakPoint | by Chuck Colson | Sep. 17, 2009

If we can’t convince people to change their behavior to save the planet, maybe God can. Or so one atheist thinks. These are discouraging times for environmentalists. The momentum to adopt sweeping measures to combat man-made global warming has slowed, even ground to a halt in some places. [Read more…]

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