Glory to God For All Things

November 19, 2012

Godless Morality

Is it possible to be moral without believing in God? I would venture to say that moral is pretty much all there is without God. To be moral requires that we have some understanding of the rules governing our behavior and a willingness to live by those rules. I have pondered many times why someone […]
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Asceticism, Morality, Orthodox Christianity, Secularism, Union with God
November 15, 2012

From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of Christ

Man is mud whom God has commanded to become god. – attributed to St. Gregory of Nyssa +++ How do you create a God? How do you create a being that has true freedom, true love and thus, true existence? This is obviously not an entirely rational question – but it is a serious question for […]
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Dostoevsky, Existence, Orthodox Christianity, Salvation, Union with God
November 11, 2012

A Life of Thanksgiving

Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation. Fr. Alexander Schmemann I have just completed a week in New Mexico, visiting a monastery and leading a retreat in Santa Fe. One of the retreat participants reminded me of this post on giving thanks and shared how helpful it had been for her. We are […]
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Knowledge of God, Orthodox Christianity, Thankfulness
November 7, 2012

In the Desert – A Time of Silence

I am in New Mexico for the remainder of the week and into early next week. I will be staying at a monastery and also speaking at a parish retreat. All said, it will be a fairly quiet week for me, often without internet. That said, my monitoring of comments and conversation will be quite […]
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Orthodox Christianity
October 31, 2012

Empty Ritual

For the first two decades of my life I thought that “empty” always had to be said in front of the word “ritual.” It speaks volumes about a certain understanding of the world in which we live and the nature of its relationship to God. Time and experience have given me a radically different take […]
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Icons, Liturgy, Orthodox Christianity, The Sacraments
October 29, 2012

The Final Destruction of Demons

Final is not a word you often hear in Christian teaching. Most Christians leave the final things until, well, the End. But this is not the language of the fathers nor of the Church. A good illustration can be found in the Orthodox service of Holy Baptism. During the blessing of the waters the priest […]
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Orthodox Christianity, The Church, The Sacraments
October 25, 2012

The Restless Christian

Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. Thou hast made us for thyself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. Augustine’s Confessions, 1.1 St. Augustine speaks of a restlessness within the human heart – an apparently timeless hunger of the soul. The story of […]
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Knowledge of God, Orthodox Christianity, Prayer
October 20, 2012

Church Scandals Must Come

Scandals must come (Matt. 18:7). These are the words of Christ. He tells us that scandals are not only likely to happen – but that they will happen. They are necessary (ἀνάγκη). Most readers will marvel that this is a quote from Jesus. The reason is simple: the Greek (ἀνάγκη γάρ ἐστιν ἐλθεῖν τὰ σκάνδαλα) is […]
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Enemies, Morality, Orthodox Christianity, Salvation, The Church
October 17, 2012

Where Orthodoxy Stands

Many of the postmodern challenges to the modern perspective are questions about the character and nature of knowledge. A particular focus has been on the concept of objectivity. When we view something objectively, we think of ourselves as standing outside the thing being observed. We are able to “walk around” it and examine it from […]
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Conversion, Knowledge of God, Mystical Theology, Orthodox Christianity, The Church
October 9, 2012

How the Church Reads the Church

You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. (2 Cor. 3:2-3) The […]
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Interpretation, Orthodox Christianity, Scripture, The Church

Matthew, Sometimes people ask me whether I’m Catholic. I say “yes but not Roman Catholic “. Then I explain that…

Dear Father , Where you express a bit of doubt, I hold a lot of doubt I do not see…

Thank you Fr Stephen! I thought I’d heard that phrase before.

Margaret, It was simply the observation that we all live in “interesting times.” I had the Chinese proverb in mind…

Father, The concept of interconnection among us all is a new way of understanding for me. It’s similar to trying…