Christianity

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…]

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…]

When It Comes to Sex, the Left Hates Science

SalvoMag | by Hunter Baker | Autumn 2009

It has become an article of faith among those on the secular left that they are the natural allies of scientific rationality. At the time of the 2004 election, both Robert Reich and Garry Wills styled religious conservatives as the enemies of science who threatened to bring in a new dark age. This appraisal, excessively flattering and self-congratulatory to themselves, while unfairly condemnatory of others, arises from two on-going campaigns.

The first, which has been running far longer than any play on Broadway, is the organized effort by partisans of Darwinism to eviscerate the social influence of Christianity. [Read more…]

When Bishops Disappoint


AFR | Fr. Thomas Hopko | Sep. 9, 2009

In this podcast Fr. Thomas Hopko addresses the key issue of “What do we do when those in leadership are not exercising their leadership properly?” Fr. Tom discusses corruption in the Orthodox Church and explains that these types of situations are nothing new. He references scriptures and explains that proper Christian leadership consists of servanthood (not overlordship) and exhorts the faithful to help the priests and bishops to “tend the flock of God that is in (their) charge.”

When Bishops Disappoint – 9/9/09 http://audio.ancientfaith.com/hopko/stt_2009-09-04.mp3|titles=When

[Read more…]

Radical, Moderate God

BreakPoint | Stephen Reed | Aug. 25, 2009

So often in Christian teaching, we learn that God, oftentimes a radical in His dealings with human beings, is also essentially a “moderate” when it comes to figuring out His will. By that, I mean that His procedure is moderate, even while His approach may be radical. Few can doubt Jesus’ radical love, proven in His dealings with His disciples or perfect strangers in the gospel accounts.

But many times you will hear learned Christian teachers stress in their lessons on theology that the path of a Christian lies not in being a total libertine, nor as a complete ascetic. Instead, as Jesus said so eloquently, we are to be both “in the world, yet not of the world.” Or when it comes to our mindset here on earth, Jesus tells us to be “as innocent as doves but as wise as serpents.” [Read more…]

God and Science Do Mix

BreakPoint | Tom Gilson | Aug. 21, 2009

If God kept arbitrarily interfering in nature as Haldane and Krauss imagine, we could never distinguish His message, the signal, from the noise of nature’s irregularities. To reveal Himself to humans—to communicate—He must break into nature sometimes, but He must do so rarely. There must be an ordinary course of events, so that we can discern what is out of the ordinary. If miracles happened everywhere every day, they would not be miracles at all. They would communicate nothing, and thus they would not serve God’s relational purposes. [Read more…]

Obama the Repo Man

American Thinker | Robin of Berkeley | Aug. 19, 2009

If you live in your heart, you look around and see the kaleidoscope of humanity. People of different abilities, ages, challenges all trying to live happy and meaningful lives. But if you don’t live in your heart, if you live in your ideology, then your eyes see a different reality. You divide the world up into those who can serve the state and those who cannot.

In the world of Obama and his friends, there are able bodied people who can be used. Then there are the clunkers, the parasites and sponges. The welcome mat has been pulled out from under us; the Statue of Liberty is sinking. [Read more…]

The Calling of a Bishop is to Preach the Gospel

OrthodoxyToday | Bradley Nassif | Aug. 13, 2009

The apostolic mission of a bishop in the Eastern Orthodox Church can be summarized in five points.

1. Preach the Gospel.
All bishops are to proclaim and interpret the gospel of Christ to the church and to the world. Bishops should be elected largely on the basis of their knowledge and ability to skillfully communicate the Holy Scriptures. St. John Chrysostom is the prime example of such a bishop. All bishops are to faithfully keep the gospel clear and central to their ministries. [Read more…]

Pope: Church Needs Priests in love with Christ

Catholic Online | Aug. 6, 2009

“Contemporary relativism mortifies reason, because in fact it arrives at the point of affirming that the human being knows nothing with certainty beyond the field of positive science”. Thus man remains a “beggar for meaning and fulfilment,” “in constant search for comprehensive answers to questions of substance that he ceaselessly poses to himself”.

Thus, just as the Council invites, the priests of today must remember this “thirst for truth,” that is burning in the heart of every man, and become teachers of the faith, capable of “opening up the way that leads to Christ [and the Church] to all people”. [Read more…]

Pope: Today’s Church Needs Saints and Martyrs

Catholic Online | Aug. 10, 2009

Recalling some saints whose memory is celebrated in the weeks to come, Benedict XVI affirmed that they are witness to a “Christian humanism” that differs deeply from an “atheistic humanism”.

The Saints – the pope cited in particular the martyrs Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein – are indeed witnesses of “an antithesis which spans history, but at the end of the second millennium, with the contemporary nihilism, we have come to a crucial point, as major writers and thinkers have perceived, and as events have amply demonstrated. ” [Read more…]