Category: Orthodox Christianity
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Your Support Is Welcome
A new step has been taken with the Blog – adding a donations button. This was requested by some over a year ago and I have only just now responded. For 8 years Glory to God for All Things has been supported by my own private resources and time. A year or so back a…
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The Moral Disease
Despite what most people think, the modern age is perhaps the most moral of all periods of history. There are competing moralities which creates a sort of moral confusion – but we certainly have no lack of morality. But, as described in this article, morality itself is part of the problem. Is it possible to…
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The Human Project
“Becoming human” is a baffling phrase. Surely we are simply born as human beings. Of course this is true, but the nature of the modern world allows us to configure our lives in ways that can be described as “less than human.” When we visit a zoo and see a tiger pacing in its cage,…
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The Tradition of Being Human
Being human is a cultural event. No one is human by themselves and no one becomes human without the help of those around them. This is so obvious it should not need to be stated, but contemporary man often imagines himself to be his own creation. The exercise of individual freedom is exalted as the…
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Travel Hiatus
I will be traveling to England later today (July 24) where I will be speaking at a conference. I will be visiting the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex (where the Elder Sophrony is buried) following the conference. The upshot of all of that is that I will be able to check the…
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The Church is the Cross Through History
An aspect of the contemporary religious scene could be called “comparative Christianity”: whose version of Christianity is better? In a consumer culture such comparisons are inevitable. Sometimes they are rooted in historical arguments (Protestant vs. Catholic, the details of the Great Schism, etc.). Often they are simply rooted in consumer perceptions (better program, better music,…
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Saintless Christianity
What would Christianity mean if there were no saints? To rephrase the question: What would be the meaning of the Christian gospel if there were no wonderworkers, no people who had been transfigured with the Divine Light, no clairvoyant prophets, no healers, no people who had raised the dead, no ascetics living alone in the…
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The Long Defeat and the Cross
Few ideas contrast as starkly to our modern myths as Tolkien’s view of history as “the long defeat.” I have been very interested in the continuing comments that struggle with the perceived pessimism of such a phrase. I have refrained from commenting at length myself, for the very reason that I wanted to do so…
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Tolkien’s Long Defeat
“Actually I am a Christian,” Tolkien wrote of himself, “and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory” (Letters 255). +++ History as a long defeat –…
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Mere Morality
What makes an action moral? I use the word to describe something done in an effort to conform to a rule, a law, or a principle. It is a matter of the will and a matter of effort. All societies require some form of moral behavior. If there were no such behavior, life would be…
Thanks so much Fr. Stephen. The Roman Catholic priest in the church near our home said to us that although…