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Ancient Faith Blogs presents a select group of writers and thinkers who regularly post on matters of theology, culture, art, parish, and family life.
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Glory to God for All Things
Providence and the Music of All Creation
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God’s being and actions are one. This is essentially the teaching of the Church on the topic of the Divine Energies. When I read discussions about this – it seems to get lost in the twists and turns of medieval metaphysics or passes into the territory of seeing the “Uncreated Light.” Both approaches are unhelpful for me, and both obscure something that should be far more transparent. Some of the obscurity comes…
Faith Encouraged
Many Blessings Equal Great Responsibility!
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“Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God has done.” All through my life I’ve heard that we should “count” our blessings. If we would do this, we would be protected against falling into the “pit of despair” and we would be encouraged by how much we have in our lives. I guess that’s why I love the Orthodox wisdom of “nepsis” (wakefulness). This encouraging…
The Morning Offering
The Dark Side
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When we experience the “dark side” of the Church For those who have experienced what has been called the “dark side” of the Church, the struggle to remain faithful to the Orthodox Faith can seem daunting. The dark side is the result of the sinful, fallen nature of all of us who make up the Body of Christ. It is…
The Whole Counsel Blog
Man as the Image of God in Reverse
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That human persons are created in the image of God is explicit from the first pages of the scriptures (Gen 1:27). As a concept, removed from its particular purpose in the Genesis narrative, this fact has become the subject of a seemingly endless series of speculations as to exactly what this means. In contemporary theology, this most often takes the form of seeking to identify ‘the image of God’ in man with some characteristic or characteristics of human person. So it is proposed that rationality, or language, or freedom, for example, are the substantial meaning of God’s image. All of these speculations, and this approach as a whole, have severe difficulties. On one hand, as we advance in our knowledge…
No Other Foundation
Trinity Western University and the Rising Tide
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Happenings up here in Canada may not make headlines in the U.S. but one happening up here of late should be of some concern to all Christians in the West. I refer to the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada which upheld the right of provincial law societies to reject graduates of Trinity Western University’s law school because that school requires its students to abstain from sex outside heterosexual marriage.…
Faith Encouraged
Do You Love Me?
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At the risk of really dating myself with this movie reference, I remember the movie “Love Story” and the famous line from the film “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Hey, it was the early 70’s and we were just coming out of the tumultuous 60’s. We needed a bit of saccharine sweetness! But does love really mean never having to say you’re sorry? Really? Is our understanding of authentic love really encompassed by such…
The Morning Offering
The Non-Orthodox
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What about people who are not Orthodox? It is always a pity when people who claim to be Orthodox make judgements against fellow Christians. In the tradition of Orthodoxy, wherever we find beauty and truth, it is of God, and it is our calling, as Orthodox Christians, to rejoice when we see others have at least some portion of the…
Growing the Church
The Operating Principles of the Contemporary Social Imaginary: 5. Consilience and the Primacy of Information
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Another characteristic of Enlightenment thought, also related to the reductionistic methodology, is the notion of consilience. In essence, this is the conviction that all knowledge is unified, i.e., there is one, single pool of interrelated knowledge that can be accessed by anyone using the right methodology. Wilson speaks of the strong form of this idea, namely total consilience, which holds that nature is organized by simple universal laws of physics to which…
Glory to God for All Things
Marriage as a Lifetime of Suffering
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When couples come to ministers to talk about their marriage ceremonies, ministers think it’s interesting to ask if they love one another. What a stupid question! How would they know? A Christian marriage isn’t about whether you’re in love. Christian marriage is giving you the practice of fidelity over a lifetime in which you can look back upon the marriage and call it love. It is a hard discipline over many years.…
Faith Encouraged
OH NO! It’s Doubt!
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Paul Tillich once said, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” Interesting! In reading the Psalms, I encounter such true life and even great heroes of the faith questioning God or struggling with momentary doubt about God and His plan. The Psalmist struggled with watching the wicked prosper while he, working hard to live as God directed, suffered and struggled. But then his doubt melted away when he…
The Morning Offering
True Peace
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True Peace is the Way of the Cross In an age that seems to be forever witnessing wars between nations, and civil wars within nations, peace seems to be something that is about as possible as the alchemy that would turn metal into gold. Peacemakers struggle to find peaceful solutions for the conflicts between nations, political parties, religions, neighbors, and…
Eastern Christian Insights
Idolatry Leads to Anxiety: Homily for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost and the 3rd Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church
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Romans 5:1-10; Matthew 6:22-33 Ours is an age of anxiety. Many people are overcome with worry about matters large and small. Some certainly do need the help of physicians and psychological counselors in order to cope with their fears. The sickness of our souls remains, however, at the very heart of all our collective and personal brokenness. If our souls are not healthy, we will never find the peace that truly satisfies…
The Morning Offering
Discovering the Ancient Church
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The search for a biblical and relevant faith “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Jude 1:3 The Orthodox Christian faith and doctrine date from the first century…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Anatomy of a Foreword: Metr. Kallistos on Sexual Morality
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In the past few days Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has generated more discussion of his thought than at any other time in recent memory. The venerable Metropolitan wrote the foreword to the newest edition of The Wheel, a journal ostensibly dedicated to questions of Orthodox theology and praxis. More specifically, this edition of The Wheel focused on human being and sexuality, particularly questions…
The Morning Offering
Love Liberates the Heart
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Liberating our imprisoned heart turns chaos into harmony The inevitability of death is particularly difficult to face for most Americans, as we’ve become a people that eschew traditional funerals, preferring to “celebrate the life of our loved one, while disposing of the body, and banning any sign of death from the memorial service should we even decide to have a…
Father Bill's Blog
70. What Ever Happened to Fathers?
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I remember a little boy years ago: His father would sit in his chair, and the boy would sit in his chair. His father would cross his legs, and the boy would cross his legs. His father would turn the page of his newspaper; and his son would turn the page of his book. As time went on his father got so busy with his work that he left before the kids…
A Lamp for Today
Is our “Heavenly Father” Archaic and Unnecessary?
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Romans 5:1-10; Matthew 6:26-33; John 1:18; Luke 10:21-22 This weekend, Orthodox are given two readings that neatly coincide with secular Father’s Day. The first is Romans 5:1-10, in which we hear about all that we have received in our reconciliation with God, what has been done for us in Christ, how we are called to live a life leading to theosis, and how all of this shows us the love of the…
Faith Encouraged
Is There Injustice in God?
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If you could know the future, would you want to? I mean, really; if you could know the exact moment of your death, would you want that information? Knowing the future has been a preoccupation for we humans forever! I remember riding in the backseat of a car with a friend and passing one of those little houses on the side of the road with the big sign out front: “Madam So and…
The Morning Offering
Our Guardian Angel
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An angel who is sleepless and cannot be deceived According to Saint John Climacus, in his The Ladder of Divine Ascent, when we feel sweetness or compunction at some word of our prayer, we should dwell on it, for then our guardian angel is praying with us. This angel, who is always with us, becomes distressed and indignant when, without…
Faith Encouraged
All Creation Groans
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Being in the room when my daughters were born was an unforgettable experience. Of course, I was a spectator. It was my wife that was doing all the work! And it wasn’t always a “fun” experience. In fact, I was “invited” to experience some of that pain while holding the hand of my bride during labor. The woman has a very strong grip! The event of childbirth is such a powerful icon…
The Morning Offering
Kissing the Hand
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Kissing the hand of the priest is not about the man The kissing of the hand of the priest is not about the man, but rather about Christ. It is much like the kissing of an icon, which is not about the veneration of paint and wood, but about the archetype represented in the icon. When we kiss the hand…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
The Church and Homosexuality: A Meditation
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I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. —Romans 8:18 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” At that saying…
The Whole Counsel Blog
The Spirit of God in the Old Testament
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This week serves as a sort of epilogue to the recent series on Christ in the Old Testament. These previous posts discussed the reality that Second Temple Judaism, through a close reading of the Hebrew scriptures, had developed the idea that there is a second hypostasis of Yahweh, the God of Israel. The terminology for this within the Jewish world was to speak of the ‘Two Powers in Heaven’. The identity and origin of this second hypostasis was the subject of much debate and conjecture in Jewish literature. The New Testament authors clearly identify the second person of the Godhead as Jesus Christ, incarnate in their day. In response to this core argument of the Christian proclamation, the Jewish community…
No Other Foundation
Metropolitan Kallistos and The Wheel
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I owe a great debt of gratitude to Metropolitan Kallistos—or at least to Timothy Ware. I read his book The Orthodox Church long ago and it was an important part of my conversion to Orthodoxy. I still have the somewhat battered volume on my bookshelf, a gold bishop’s mitre on the cover set off against a black background. That was before Timothy became Kallistos and parenthesized his surname, and I have followed…
Faith Encouraged
2nd International Conference on Digital Media and Orthodox Pastoral Care
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Dear Faith Encouraged Family, Fr. Barnabas leaves this Saturday to attend and present at the 2nd International Conference on Digital Media and Orthodox Pastoral Care to be held in Chania, Crete, Greece June 18-21. (www.dmopc18.com) This conference draws on an international representatives from several Orthodox Local Churches as well as representatives from over 21 countries. And the speakers, both clergy and laity, will offer talks that focus our attention on the opportunities,…
Faith Encouraged
You Are In The Spirit
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Debt is a prison. Just ask anyone still paying Federal School Loans. The truth is the modern phenomenon of Student Loans is a ticking time bomb in our economy as more and more people find a sense of hopelessness in ever escaping the burden of paying for higher education. But a sense of indebtedness isn’t always negative. In fact, one can make the argument that a sense of indebtedness towards other to…
The Morning Offering
Standing Before God
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The Orthodox practice of standing for worship Standing before God has been the only acceptable posture for Orthodox Christians from the earliest of times. We recognize that a faithful servant would never sit before his master, for the faithful are all servants of the Lord, whom we worship as we stand in our temples. The Holy Apostle Paul tells us,…