Youngest daughter now married

For those of you who have been wondering at my abscence, it was because last week was our youngest daughter’s wedding. Therefore, we were quite occupied with all the inevitable last minute details. One of those details is that last week, two days before the wedding, I had the opportunity to chrismate our daughter into the Church. Her chrismation is recorded at a Greek Orthodox parish. This means... [Read more]

faq

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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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 Phronema

What does the Greek term “phronema” mean? According to the Wikipedia, “Phronema is a transliteration of [a] Greek word, . . . which has the meanings of ‘mind’, ‘spirit’, ‘thought’, ‘purpose’, ‘will’, and can have either a positive meaning (‘high spirit’, ‘resolution’, ‘pride’) or a bad... [Read more]

research

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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Abstinence-only education among high risk youth

Efficacy of a Theory-Based Abstinence-Only Intervention Over 24 Months A Randomized Controlled Trial With Young Adolescents John B. Jemmott III, PhD; Loretta S. Jemmott, PhD, RN; Geoffrey T. Fong, PhD Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010;164(2):152-159. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of an abstinence-only intervention in preventing sexual involvement in young adolescents. Design: Randomized controlled... [Read more]

Marriage and permanency

When I first saw this comic today, I read it quickly and was mildly offended at the mother’s comment in the second panel. Then I reread it and realized that I did agree with it. You see, at first I had read the second panel from the sacramental viewpoint. From the view of God’s desire as He unites people in marriage, there is no doubt that the Sacrament of Marriage does make a relationship... [Read more]

Never Ceese and Augustinian Original Sin

So, you do not know why the book, Never Ceese, fits the worldview of Roman Catholic Christianity? Well, let Father Orthoduck tell you. But, let Father Orthoduck warn you that there is some heavy theology ahead. OK, here is the theology. All Christians agree that the Fall has damaged humanity, but they do not agree on what it all means.  Both the East and the West agree that Free Will has been damaged,... [Read more]

Review of Never Ceese

I am finally writing the review on the book Never Ceese which I have mentioned before. Here is my short opinion of the book: BUY IT, BUY IT, BUY IT Ms. Dent has written a book that both follows some of the typical “rules” for vampires and werewolves and yet twists those typical rules in new and interesting ways. I will not give away that part of the plot, but suffice it to say that Ms.... [Read more]

More suffragette tidbits

For those of you who are interested, here is another small list of suffragist tidbits. 1. The first legal woman voter in Colonial America was Lydia Chapin. She was granted the right to vote at a town meeting in Uxbridge, Massachussetts, in 1756. 2. In 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They wanted to gain passage of an amendment to... [Read more]