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The Seat of Mercy and the End of the Legal View
Read more: The Seat of Mercy and the End of the Legal ViewAmong the more problematic words in the New Testament is the Greek hilasterion. It is translated as “propitiation” in some of the older English Bibles, and “expiation,” in newer ones. It’s actual meaning is neither. The word literally means “the place of mercy,” and is the Greek word used in the Old Testament (LXX) to […]
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Blood Brothers of the Incarnation
Read more: Blood Brothers of the IncarnationMy childhood in the 1950’s had the innocence of the time, fed by stories of our elders and the clumsy movies. We played soldiers (everyone’s father had been in the Second World War) and “Cowboys and Indians.” Despite the clear bias of the movies and the slanted propaganda that passed for history, almost everyone wanted […]
Atonement, Communion, Incarnation, Interpretation, Modernity, Reflections, The Sacraments, Union with God
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The Scandal of the Transfiguration
Read more: The Scandal of the TransfigurationMy bishop recently shared the story of a young man whom he taught some years ago. He was Orthodox from Estonia. He grew up in the Soviet era and had come to hate all things Russian, including the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, he saw an Orthodox procession in the streets of his city one year, a […]
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Remembering the End
Read more: Remembering the EndOrthodox 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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Why the Orthodox Honor Mary
Read more: Why the Orthodox Honor MaryToday (August 1) marks the beginning of the Fast of the Dormition, the annual preparation for the feast of the Falling Asleep of the Virgin Mary. I offer this article as reflection. The most difficult part of my Orthodox experience to discuss with the non-Orthodox is the place and role of the Mother of God […]
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The Divine Compass
Read more: The Divine CompassI was in a small shop yesterday in a coastal town. Among its many knick-knacks were a large variety of compasses. We have become a compass-driven culture today, after a lull in which they were largely passé. Of course, the compass is now a very passive thing, hidden within the workings of the resident GPS […]
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A Faith You Can Sink Your Teeth Into
Read more: A Faith You Can Sink Your Teeth IntoIn a now-famous experiment, volunteers were fitted with inverting lenses, such that everything they saw appeared upside-down. In a few days their brains adjusted and what they saw appeared correctly. When the lenses were removed, their naked eyes now saw things inverted, though again, after a few days their vision returned to normal. We are […]
Beauty, Communion, Incarnation, Knowledge of God, Modernity, Reflections, Secularism, The Sacraments
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The Disenchanted World
Read more: The Disenchanted WorldA very apt word for the world we live in is: disenchanted. It was first used by Max Weber and a number of others to describe a certain aspect of the modern world – the absence of the sacred. Where people of earlier eras and other cultures have experienced the world around them as charged […]
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The Secular Mind versus the Whole Heart
Read more: The Secular Mind versus the Whole HeartThinking is among the most misleading things in the modern world, or, to be more precise, thinking about thinking is misleading. For a culture that puts such a great emphasis on materiality, our thinking about thought is decidedly spooky. The philosophy underlying our strangely-constructed modernity is called nominalism (of which there are many formal […]
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The Hand in the Gospel
Read more: The Hand in the GospelMy desk sits looking out of a wall of windows. My small backyard is shaded by a lush green this time of year. At any time of day or night, nature sounds mark the movement of the sun as much as the shifting shadows: birds in the early morning give way to katydids as the […]
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Father as an admirer of your ministry and a former Roman Catholic I am only concerned about the phrase “development…
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Dee, thank you for your response. This resonates with me, as I believe we are all connected on a deep…