One of the strongest sayings of Our Lord Jesus Christ is, “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake […]
Obama’s speech on the Tucson murders
Yesterday, President Obama faced the difficult task of trying to speak to a nation that had been battered by the pundits and talking heads since the murders in Tucson. I call them murders because they appear to be premeditated. I do not believe that the accused will be able to use the insanity defense. I […]
Orthodoxy and para-Church organizations
Fr. Ernesto’s subject from yesterday will continue tomorrow. There is little doubt that parachurch organizations now have a large part in providing many services and/or evangelism and/or missions that the Church is supposed to be doing. This sometimes places the Orthodox in a difficult position. On the one hand, it is difficult for us to support […]
The Holy Innocents killed by Herod (2010)
One of the oddities of the Church calendar is that there are certain feasts that are celebrated on one day in the East, but another day in the West. This is the case of the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The West celebrated that feast yesterday, but the East celebrates it today. Here is what […]
Mystery is sometimes very mysterious
One of the standard Evangelical definitions of mystery takes all the mystery out of mystery. That particular definition claims that there is no mystery to mystery. In other words, the claim is that a New Testament mystery is only something that was mysterious in the Old Testament but that is no longer mysterious in the […]
A non-theological appreciation of free will and the sovereignty of God
A person commented the following on my post yesterday: You know, the more I read and learn concerning Orthodox theology, the more I see an acceptance of paradox that even exceeds my native Lutheranism. My reply is that it has more to do with the idea of mystery, but rather than try to explain it […]
Free will and salvation
I quoted both Patriarch Dositheus and Metropolitan Kallistos yesterday to point out to my Orthodox brethren that some of them go to the other extreme from Saint Augustine and almost end up claiming that our free will was, at best, barely damaged. But, both an approved Orthodox confession and a current Metropolitan who is a […]
Free will is not simply a philosophical definition
If you remember my first posting two days ago, I commented that I had a problem with some of my fellow Orthodox. It is in that vein that I continue the discussion. Some of my fellow Orthodox react so strongly to Augustinianism, and its derivative Calvinism, that they go to the point of going to […]
We are fallen and damaged
We Orthodox often do not take seriously enough what it means that we are fallen and damaged. It is true that we do not believe in various forms of total depravity. However, all too often we react against extreme forms of total depravity by going to the other extreme and almost denying that we are […]
Joan of Arc and post-schism Christianity
A Roman Catholic saint that is not often remembered nowadays is Joan of Arc. She dates to just before the Protestant Reformation. She is considered a national heroine of France, but is a most odd saint. The story is as follows: Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (French: Jeanne d’Arc, ca. 1412 […]
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