Glory to God For All Things

February 12, 2015

Sex and the Moral Imagination

As the day draws near for the US Supreme Court to insist on nationwide approval for gay marriage, a watershed in modern thought has been reached. For although the Supreme Court is not the arbiter of morality, its decisions generally signal a deep level of cultural acceptance. Of course, in American practice, the court represents […]
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Cross, Modernity, Morality, Personhood, Reflections, Union with God
February 9, 2015

The Moral Path of Being

If Christian morality is not a legal or forensic matter, how are we to think about moral behavior? Does the word have no use for Orthodox Christians? What do we think about when we confess our sins? If morality is ontological – a matter of being – what does that look like? To say that […]
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Modernity, Morality, Personhood, Reflections, Secularism
February 5, 2015

Boundaries, Borders and the True God

Years ago, as a young seminarian, I wanted to paint icons. I knew nothing about icons, only that I liked them and that they were holy. The vast wealth of books and materials on their meaning and even on the technique of painting them simply did not exist. My knowledge of painting was also non-existent. […]
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Existence, Knowledge of God, Modernity, Personhood, Reflections, Time
February 3, 2015

To Be or Not To Be – A Moral Question?

As I continue this series on morality (or unmorality) the conversation continues to push me back to basics. There are deeply important reasons for unthinking the morality of the modern world and rethinking its place in our relationship with God. The most important reason is because it is incorrect to think of us as primarily […]
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Modernity, Morality, Reflections, Tradition
January 31, 2015

The Unmoral Christian Revisited

My article, The Un-moral Christian, along with You’re Not Getting Better, have continued to generate conversation around the internet, and within parishes. At least that’s the impression I get from numerous conversations, emails, social media, and even phone calls. Most of those conversations seem to be serious and are engaging the question of how Orthodox […]
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Modernity, Morality, Reflections, Salvation
January 29, 2015

The Doors and God

You cannot attend an Orthodox service and not be aware of doors. There are the doors that form the center of the icon screen, opening directly upon the altar. There are the two doors that flank them, one on either side, known as the “Deacon Doors.” Someone always seems to be coming out of one […]
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Liturgy, Mystical Theology, Reflections, Salvation
January 26, 2015

Messiness in the Modern World

Salvation can be messy. I believe this with all my heart and so I state it at the outset of this article. As such, it marks me as a heretic in Modernity. I not only believe that salvation is messy – I believe that messiness is pretty much inherent to salvation. And along with that, […]
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Existence, Modernity, Orthodox Christianity, Reflections, Salvation, The Journey of Faith
January 24, 2015

Abraham at the End of the World

This is an exercise in the Orthodox reading of the Scriptures. My thoughts frequently return to this story and this line of thought. This article is greatly expanded from an earlier version. The habits of modern Christians run towards history: it is a lens through which we see the world. We see a world of cause […]
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Forgiveness, Last Things, Liturgy, Reflections, Salvation, The Sacraments, Union with God
January 21, 2015

Saved in Weakness

We are not saved by our talents and gifts nor by our excellence – we are saved by our weakness and our failure. I have made this point in several ways in several articles over the recent past – and the question comes up – but what does that look like? How do I live […]
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Conversion, Forgiveness, Reflections, Repentance, Union with God
January 19, 2015

Gifts and Talents and the Road to Hell

At some point in my past, there was a survey used in parishes that was all the rage. It was a “gifts and talents” survey, designed to make everyone in the parish find their true ministry and to work together in fulfillment of St. Paul’s description of the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians. The […]
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Modernity, Morality, Reflections, Repentance

Father, As far as I understand it, Descartes’ metaphysics was strongly dualistic, with a distinction between mind and matter. I…

Dee, This is intriguing! Can you point us to more information?

The three dimensional Cross existed well before Descartes’ ideation. It lies within all reality as a mystery we barely discern.

Indeed, we have a small sliver of the Cross in our Greek Orthodox parish, which we venerated. Father, I hope…

Thanks so much for the explanation Fr. Stephen.