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The most God-believing nation in Europe and Asia

A person commented on my Tolstoy post by sending me a link from an article in the Christian Science Monitor called, How Russians survived militant atheism to embrace God. It is an article worth reading in its entirety. Below are a few quotes from the article: Sometimes really huge news stories occur that receive almost no notice, but they are seismic just the same. Today, less than 20 years after... [Read more]

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Christians, vaccinations, and herd immunity

A devout Christian heard an urgent news report on his radio that a flash flood was within minutes of entering the peaceful valley where he lived. Immediately he went to his knees and prayed for safety. The words were still on his lips when he became aware that water was gushing under his door. He retreated to the second floor and finally onto the roof of his house. While he sat on the roof, a helicopter... [Read more]

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An aside about servicepeople supporting freedom

Yesterday, Father Ernesto continued his discussion on Kuhn and a changing paradigm shift. He will continue that tomorrow with a small discussion on post-modernism and how that has impacted our view of truth. However, he brought up an event from 1946 nicknamed the McMinn County War. There is no recent comparable event, but it is certainly true that there still continues to be a strong feeling in America... [Read more]

God forgive him, but not me, because I could not beware

For who deceives me once, God forgive him; if twice, God forgive him; but if thrice, God forgive him, but not me, because I could not beware. — 1611 Tarlton’s Jests [English "modernized" to make it readable] Yesterday I pointed out that several events had led to the loss of the concept of truth in our society, among them were philosophical ideas, the realization that some viewpoints had... [Read more]

Fool me twice . . . rethink your approach to truth

Yesterday I quoted from a book by a priest whom I know. In it he said: Let me submit to you, therefore, that the great spiritual battle of our time is not a struggle between believers and atheists. Rather, it is a struggle between pride and humility. We expect and even demand humility in almost all other areas of life–what really matters is what is objectively true, not what any of us might happen... [Read more]

Phronema and American Orthodoxy

Yesterday I mentioned that there are two great streams of Orthodoxy currently, the Russian and the Byzantine. But, even those streams of Orthodoxy have some variation in different countries. Thus, Romanian Orthodoxy has a different but very similar phronema to Russian Orthodoxy. And, potentially, in the future there could be additional great streams that make up Orthodoxy. For instance, should the... [Read more]

Missions and difficult transitions

One of the most difficult transitions for a mission to a new area to make is the transition from being a church that looks like a transplant to being a church that culturally fits into the country into which it was planted. What do I mean? Well, you can see the struggle in Scripture and you can even see the struggle in Orthodox history. The issue has spilled reams of paper and gallons of ink, not only... [Read more]

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Freedom for us, dictatorship for others

Father Orthoduck will make this post very brief. The comic above illustrates an attitude that is all too common in USA history. Beginning in the 1950′s, USA political doctrine was that it was safer to support friendly dictators than it was to take a chance on unknown freedom movements. Thus, in the post-World War II period, the USA began to interfere in the national life of countries in Latin... [Read more]

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A good article on Europe and Christian heritage

Normally, I do not post articles written by other people in their entirety. But, this article is worth the effort to post here. Mostly, I tend to heavily critique American Christian political conservatives for many stances that worry me. But, this is a very nice article and critique of Europe, whose Christian problems are the almost diametrical opposites of ours. I do not agree with most European Christian... [Read more]

Christian Porn

The post below is from Pithless Thoughts. Father Orthoduck is only posting part of it. I do highly recommend that you go to his blog and read the entire article. So, I recently posted a video of a “goofy” charismatic couple “praying”. Basically to be honest, I posted it because it invited derision, smirking, ridicule and well, yeah, comments. But I confess that, when I created... [Read more]