Moral issues

Righteousness Is Not A Part Time Job

Righteousness Is Not A Part Time Jobby Abbot Tryphon –
The quest for righteousness is not a part time job.

Teachers and parents routinely remind children of the importance of refraining from giving in to peer pressure, knowing that good behavior can often be undermined by the desire to fit in with their friends and schoolmates.

We adults need to remember that we, too, are often subject to peer pressure. When we are surrounded by people who always take the moral high road, who are honest in their business practices, and respectful in the way they treat other people, our own adherence to the commandments of God is made easier. [Read more…]

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Lukewarm and Fearful Christians Are the Devil’s Playground

Lukewarm and Fearful Christians Are the Devils Playgroundby Jackie Morfesis –
The darkness revels at Christians afraid to shine their light. In fact, a fearful Christian is the devil’s playground.

I was blessed to have a mother, Lucia, memory eternal, who had the boldness to speak scriptural truth to me. She knew exactly what to say that would plant a seed in my heart that took root and would grow for years to come. I vividly remember her looking down at me as a child standing in our kitchen in New Jersey and telling me that God does not want the lukewarm.

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). Powerful words that every single one of us must take to heart. [Read more…]

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Rise of Heretical Pro-Abortion “Orthodox” False Teachers

Archbishop Elpidophoros Pro-Abortion Blasphemous Messageby Fr. John Whiteford –
You will not find a single Church Father or Saint of the Church that calls abortion anything less than murder.

In recent years, there are lines of division that not only show the signs of an emerging schism in the Orthodox Church — it is becoming increasingly clear that we are witnessing the birth of a new religion, which will only retain some of the outward trappings of the Orthodox Christian Faith, but in fact is increasingly becoming unrecognizable as Christian. We see this when it comes to how the innovators see the sanctity of life, sexuality, human nature, the Church, and Tradition.

As we currently contemplate the prospect of Roe vs. Wade being overturned, it is important to remember that in January of this year, at the March for Life, Archbishop Elpidophoros used the occasion to affirm his support for abortion “rights.” [Read more…]

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Will Our Children Keep the Christian Faith?

Will Our Children Keep the Christian Faith?by Fr. Gabriel (Hieromonk) –

The Catastrophe of Modern Education
I have already written on multiple occasions of the urgent necessity of creating Orthodox parish schools in America.

Our nation’s public schools have degenerated into prison-like institutions which have outlawed all mention of Truth (the Second Person of the Trinity), which forbid any public prayer to the Lord God, which teach sexual propaganda and promote infanticide to kindergarteners, which lead students to believe that they will likely be brutally massacred by their own peers, and which on top of everything else no longer even educate our children in any meaningful sense of the word at all. [Read more…]

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Parents Must Fight to Prevent the Fallen World from Stealing Their Children

Parents Must Fight to Prevent the Fallen World from Stealing Their Childrenby Fr. Octavian Moşin –
Our main duty is to surround the children with care and prevent any harmful influence from entering their souls or stealing them from us.

To create a family is about denouncing oneself for the sake of the love of your neighbor. On the whole, I think that family is akin to a monastery. A monk at his tonsure takes three vows: to live in chastity, poverty, and obedience. If these principles were kept in family life, we would have a completely different outcome than the one we are facing today.

One should keep his desires at bay, preserve physical and spiritual purity; money should be a shared resource, with no one furtively trying to stash it away, because both the husband’s and the wife’s major goal is to acquire [Read more…]

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St. Paisios Brotherhood: Orthodox Men’s Group Challenges Men to Recover Authentic Manhood

St. Paisios Brotherhood: Orthodox Men Group Challenges Men to Recover Authentic ManhoodThe Brotherhood of St. Paisios –
The first goal is purity of heart, growth into real manhood, the acquisition of virtue, the strengthening of manly character.

The Brotherhood exists so that we can learn how to become men. Our Lord needs men to be men. Real men will be able to withstand the assaults of the enemy and reveal Truth to the world.

Focus on this men. Don’t be drawn into the illusion that the battle is about polemics. Polemics has a place, sometimes an important place, but the first goal is purity of heart, growth into real manhood, the acquisition of virtue, the strengthening of manly character. [Read more…]

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All or Nothing – God Can Never Bless Sin or Accept Evil

All or Nothing – God Can Never Bless Sin or Accept Evilby Anthony Esolen –
Not one minute of time, not one millimeter of space, may be devoted to the false god, as if we could declare it off limits from God.

“Ye shall be as gods,” said the serpent. Whitaker Chambers called it the second oldest religion in the world. It has always proved popular. In his time, it took the form of communism. But the tempter is not so stupid as to appear in the same guise always; even human beings eventually get the idea that certain “moral mushrooms” will kill them, and they may even remember it for a few generations. In the meantime, the tempter must peddle something else, must appear as someone else. No trouble there. Mushrooms and mountebanks are always ready to hand.

I am thinking about the characteristic sins of our age. These have to do first or most obviously with the body, but they seep their poison into social relations, economics, medicine, education, law, art, and politics, corrupting them all. If holiness is like a royal dye that ennobles all it touches, sin is like acid. [Read more…]

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Leftists Denounce Math as Racist

Leftists Denounce Math as Racist Hidden Figuresby Jeff Davidson –
Progressives, BLM advocates, and social justice warriors detect racism, real or not, everywhere they look, particularly in education.

Imagine that a young Isaac Newton, Madame Curie, Henri Poincare, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, or, for that matter, Pythagoras, Euclid, or Archimedes was newly enrolled in a Portland, Oregon grade School.

Exposed to this state’s absurd edict regarding how math is to be taught – to make it less “white,” and to remove the onus of showing your work and reaching the right answer — would any of them have achieved prominence? Would the world be the same? [Read more…]

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How Do We Keep Our Youth in the Church?

How Do We Keep Our Youth in the Churchby Abbot Tryphon –
We are living in an age that has witnessed changes on a massive scale as never before. The way we communicate has changed with the coming of the internet, with information available that would have required a library and advanced degrees to access in the past. Ideas and information are available that leave our youth with choices that were never available a generation ago.

Moral norms have changed, with values and lifestyles that would have never been seen as acceptable in the past becoming part of mainstream. Gay marriage, the high divorce rate, children being raised by unwed parents, and profane music that sounds like it came from the underworld (which inspired it, I’m sure). Child sexual abuse is reaching shocking numbers, with clergy, boy scout leaders, coaches and police officers under arrest. [Read more…]

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Christians, It’s Later Than You Think, Pray Without Ceasing

Hard Times Create Strong Men by James George Jatras –
Simply being what used to be considered normal and leading a productive life is becoming the most revolutionary act one can perform. With that in mind, find the strength to be revolutionaries indeed!

I accepted the invitation to speak with you today only with great trepidation. This was for at least three reasons.

The first is that, both for self-protection in an increasingly unfree country and my growing sense that nothing I or anyone else can say will make much difference in averting the horrors I believe are coming our way, I had ceased my public writing and speaking life, such as it was. I reluctantly have made an exception to that less than momentous recusal but plan to resume it at the end of today.

Secondly, I was loath to contaminate the naturally ebullient optimism of youth with my crotchety Boomer pessimism. At your age you should feel that the world is, if not quite your oyster, at least pregnant with possibilities. How do I tell you that, in the layman’s terms, your lives will probably suck? At least in the near future. But there is hope. I will return to that.

Thirdly, I thought it would be derelict of me not to provide you with some sage, old graybeard advice of a practical nature. If I were in your shoes today, what would I do, specifically, to try to make a positive contribution to the world around me? [Read more…]

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