Category: Church
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Is Heaven a Long Church Service?
My parents enjoyed farming. They both grew up on farms. Both did hard work in the cotton fields of the South. I never heard them complain about that. We had a small home in a 50’s subdivision. My Dad had a garage built in the backyard. Behind the garage, he put in a garden. It…
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When America Got Sick
It was in the years following the Civil War, America was hard on the path to “becoming great.” The industrial revolution had moved into full swing, railroads criss-crossed the country, immigration was gaining speed, and wealth was accumulating at a rate never seen before. We were slowly moving from our original agrarian economy towards life…
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Stumbling Toward Salvation
On occasion I have written on topics that seem to scandalize readers, or certainly cause difficulty for many. Some of those topics have been articles on the wrath of God; the radical forgiveness of everyone for everything; the commonality of our life and our salvation; and various posts on giving thanks always for all things…
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Knocking Down the Gates of Hell
The Swedish Lutheran theologian, Gustav Aulén, published a seminal work on the types of atonement theory in 1930 (Christus Victor). Though time and critical studies have suggested many subtler treatments of the question, no one has really improved on his insight. Especially valuable was his description of the “Classic View” of the atonement. This imagery,…
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St. Melito and Pascha – Hell Is Not the Last Word
Among the most powerful meditations on Pascha are the writings of Melito of Sardis (ca. 190 AD). His homily, On Pascha, is both a work of genius as poetry and a powerful work of theology. Its subject is the Lord’s Pascha – particularly as an interpretation of the Old Testament. It is a common example…
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Good Friday and the Irony of Believing
Irony is probably too much to ask of youth. If I can remember myself in my college years, the most I could muster was sarcasm. Irony required more insight. There is a deep need for the appreciation of irony to sustain a Christian life. Our world is filled with contradiction. Hypocrisy is ever present even…
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The Frightful Path of Judas
I recall the first time the phrase, “On the night in which He was betrayed,” struck my heart. I was attending the evening service of Maundy Thursday at an Episcopal parish when I was a student in college. There was communion, followed by the “stripping of the altar” that symbolized the arrest and scourging of…
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The Soul of a Child and a Stone That Sings
As Christ enters Jerusalem on the Sunday before His passion, St. Matthew tells us that the children began to shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” St. Luke tells us that the Pharisees asked Christ to silence His disciples. He responded: “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry…
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His Appearing in the Liturgy
Standing in the Church, listening to the choir or chanter sing while priest censes the icons, words swirl with the rising smoke and connections and associations multiply as words evoke images and images evoke thoughts: participation, coinherence, incarnation, mystery, timeless form and formless time, fullness and emptiness, fulfillment and… And then the thought comes, full-formed…
Father, What is ontological prayer and repentance? I believe this question is relevant to this article. The theologian is one…