Category: Doctrine
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The Sins of A Nation
This is a reposting of an article from several years back. Its thoughts seem appropriate for our present time as a nation. I pray it is of some help. Can a nation ever sin? If so, how can it be forgiven? The stories and prophetic writings of the Old Testament are replete with examples of…
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Remembering the End
Orthodox Christianity often seems inherently conservative. The unyielding place that tradition holds within its life seems ready-made for a conservative bulwark against a world all-too-ready to forget everything that is good or beautiful. There are subtle but important distinctions that make this treatment of Orthodoxy misleading and can lead to the distortion of the faith…
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I Can See Clearly Now
God is in charge of the outcome of history. This simple statement is one way of expressing the Christian doctrine of divine Providence. Perhaps an even more profound way would be a statement that affirms “all things work together for good.” However, no matter how this is said, it is often the least obvious of…
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Let’s Get Out of This Place
The Saturday before Palm Sunday is known as Lazarus Saturday among the Orthodox, and they celebrate Christ raising him from the dead just prior to His entrance into Jerusalem (gospel of John). It is a feast that offers something of a preview of Christ’s resurrection, and a foretaste of the General Resurrection at the End of the…
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Magic, Superstition, and the One-Storey Universe
Over the years, in thinking about the here-and-now presence of the Kingdom of God, I have pondered about what it actually looks like. Its nemesis, the modern version of secularity, is easy to picture (we unconsciously do it all the time). That picture is of an utterly material world, governed by material laws, with possible…
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Orthodoxy and Science
I take it to be axiomatic that there is no contradiction between good theology and good science. I take it as axiomatic that we do not choose between science and faith. The strange conflicts of the modern period have nurtured a sort of bifurcation (at all times and not just in our present trials). I…
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Look Who’s Talking
Everyone is familiar with that “voice in the head.” By this, I mean the negative voice. It is mean, judgmental, angry, jealous, envious, salacious, just bad. Sometimes it goes quiet. Sometimes it is so overwhelming that it drowns everything else out. One simple question we can ask: “Who’s doing the talking?” This voice is not…
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The One Mediator – And the Sacraments
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim. 2:5) There is no way to adequately explain priesthood without reference to mediation. A priest is a mediator between God and Man. From time to time over the years, I have had the verse from 1 Timothy…
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“That Which is Lacking” – Is Jesus Enough?
The average Christian, reading his Bible in happy devotion, stumbles across this passage: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church… (Col 1:24) The passage is particularly disturbing for a…
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Into the Maw of Chaos
Here in Appalachia, there are many thousands of people whose lives move in and out of chaos. Less than a paycheck away from a cascade of debt-borne disasters, personal behaviors add even greater danger. There’s no room for messing up. As a priest in the area, the stories come through the doors of the Church…
Robert, This passage comes to mind: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring…