Nearly Orthodox
staccato...
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Sometimes when we go for weeks with illness and travel like this I think the kids probably believe we’re back off the wagon where church is concerned. Their experience of church is haphazard, bouncing from place to place, staccato. This morning when I told them that Henry and Miles’ coughing mixed with their father out of town and my own exhaustion from travel would keep us home they looked at me with…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
What Does "Orthodoxy" Mean?
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The following is an excerpt from the beginning of one of my lectures that I’ve also posted on my parish website. It is well-known among Orthodox Christians that the word orthodoxy—often used as a shorthand for our faith—has two parallel meanings. It is composed of two Greek words—orthos and doxa. Together, they form orthodoxia, rendered into English as orthodoxy. The word orthos literally means…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
The Narrow Gate: Eastern Christian Spirituality and Eastern Religion
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The following is the manuscript of a talk recently given by Ancient Faith Today host Kevin Allen at an Advent Forum in Merced, California. He has kindly given us permission to publish it in full. It’s a bit longer than most of our pieces, but it didn’t make sense to us to break it up. Tonight I will be speaking about some “points of…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Drawing False Moral Equivalence in "Rights" Politics
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The irony of our culture is that when it comes to abortion and guns, the exact same political tribes simply change places and shout “Dead children!” “My liberties!” at each other. That’s insane. Both tribes, when riding their particular hobby horses, prioritize “My liberties” over dead children. Me: I think dead children (and all other dead innocents) always take priority over my…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
O&H Author Featured in New Journal: Kairos Quarterly
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Our editor-in-chief Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick had an article published (“The Transfiguration of Place: An Orthodox Christian Vision of Localism (Part I)”) in the first issue of the new Kairos Quarterly: A Journal of Orthodox Living, a publication of the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, the largest English-speaking Orthodox monastery in North America. The new publication caught the attention of First Things yesterday for…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Where was Christ in the Newtown Massacre?
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As I am sure many clergy throughout America did this past Sunday, I preached about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut that occurred on Friday, December 14. Update: If you would like to hear the recording of this sermon as it was preached, go here. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one…
Nearly Orthodox
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For the course of Advent I’ll be posting some reflections here… 😉
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Cyril Jenkins on Forensic Justification in Scripture
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Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Women Bishops and an Archbishop Agonistes
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Well, it seems that the lame duck Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has decided to take his episcopal duty of admonition with some seriousness this week: Church of England in crisis: Archbishop of Canterbury attacks members for voting against women bishops The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a scathing attack on those within his own church who voted down legislation to…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
From Hinduism to Orthodoxy: "But what can a virgin know of the sorrows and travail of mankind?”
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This post, by author Anjali Sivan, a convert to Orthodox Christianity from Hinduism, was originally featured on her personal weblog. The original is here. The quote in the title is from a book I loved as a teenager, The Mists of Avalon [by Marion Zimmer Bradley -ed.]. In it, Morgaine (the legendary Morgan Le Fay) states: I have no quarrel with the…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Election's Over: Let's All Work Together?
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I was never going to be happy with the results of yesterday’s election. The leadership of both major American political parties is deeply compromised by corporatist interests who are served by an inflationary monetary policy managed by people who largely used to work for those interests and/or will do so again. Both major candidates are representatives of this entrenched political class. So there was…
Nearly Orthodox
The shore...
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It never fails, really. The moment I step into Divine Liturgy I am flooded with ideas; things to write, things to ponder, things to clean, things to buy. Some are good ideas. Some are so good it’s almost physically painful for me to stop myself grabbing my phone to make a note or scribbling a word, thought, phrase on a napkin in my purse. At some point in my life I have…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Billy Graham: Mormonism No Cult
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Well, it seems that Mormonism is no longer a “cult”: (CNN) – Shortly after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney enjoyed cookies and soft drinks with the Rev. Billy Graham and his son Franklin Graham on Thursday at the elder Graham’s mountaintop retreat, a reference to Mormonism as a cult was scrubbed from the website of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. In a…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
In Defense of Dogma
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The following article was originally published on the Roads from Emmaus weblog in March of 2011. It has been revised for this publication. An encounter by my wife with a Unitarian Universalist has set me thinking again upon what I believe is one of the great Christian evangelistic questions of our time: We now have to make the case for dogma. We…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Institutionalizing the Revival: The Culture of Revolutionary Christianity
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Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Institutionalizing the Revival: The Culture of Revolutionary Christianity
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I was digging recently into the darker recesses of my childhood memories and came upon a name I probably haven’t thought about in almost thirty years—Sutera. I really couldn’t remember what the name meant (and I half suspected that I was simply thinking of Chicago’s original lead singer), but I started doing some Googling and discovered the names Ralph and Lou Sutera,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Temple of the Living God
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Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 30, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “You are a temple of the living God.” We hear these words today from St. Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians, and they are followed by exhortations from Paul, quoting from the Old Testament, that the Christians of Corinth…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Emergent Church Leader Performs Same-Sex Ceremony
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(Christianity Today) Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian and a prominent Christian speaker, led a non-traditional marriage commitment ceremony this weekend, according to The New York Times. Held at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, Maryland, this ceremony included “traditional Christian elements,” but no bride. And the groom—one of them—was McLaren’s son, Trevor McLaren. The Times reports that…
Nearly Orthodox
Queen of the May...
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an excerpt from a longer piece I’m writing … Mary, Queen of the Universe stares down at me from her perch high above, near the alcove, next to the altar. Her hands held out from her sides, showing her clean, white skin, perfect nails, fingers soft and unscathed. Mary, Queen of the Universe was never my role model, I prayed instead the prayers of St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless cases. I…
Nearly Orthodox
oil and water...
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I believe, O Lord, and I confess that thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And I believe that this is truly thine own immaculate Body, and that this is truly thine own precious Blood. Wherefore I pray thee, have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and…
Nearly Orthodox
complete...
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If all goes well, if everything goes to plan, then I’ll be chrismated on September 8th. For whatever reason every time I look at the calendar I find myself lost in the little boxes, lost in the numbers. I cannot seem to do the math on how far or how close it is. After nearly two years on this bumpy road I find myself looking ahead and seeing the next milestone I’m…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
The Anglican Itch
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The Church of England and the Anglican “communion” have always fascinated me. I received my M.Div. from an Episcopal Seminary, and wrote my dissertation and first book (I am working on several seconds) on bishop John Jewel, the leading theological light of Elizabeth I’s first decade, and the chief defender of the 1559 Elizabethan Settlement. My brother William is a rector of…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Using the Bible Against Christians: Sola Scriptura Atheism
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One of the things that struck me during the Chick-Fil-A debacle couple of weeks ago was a curious theme I perceived in the inundation of negative comments I saw on social media regarding the statements made by Chick-Fil-A COO Dan Cathy, who came out (no pun intended… no, really) in favor of “the biblical definition of the family unit.” What was that…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
The Curious Case of St. John Cassian
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St. John Cassian, in his 75 year life lived at the turn of the fifth century, interacted with every major Christian figure of the Patristic Age, founded monasticism in the West, laid the theological foundation for the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, wrote the papal brief for the position of the Roman See at the Third Ecumenical Council, and wrote the most read work…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
Sikhism Compared with Orthodox Christianity
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In the wake of the recent shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, many folks in the West are probably just hearing about Sikhism for the first time. The following is an adapted excerpt from the brief section on Sikhism in Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems through the Lens of the Ancient Christian Faith. If there are any converts from Sikhism…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Writings, Recordings and Recommendations: An Update
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As you probably can tell, I’ve mainly been focusing my weblogging energy into the new Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy weblog. Forgive my neglect here. I’m still working out the balance of the kinds of work I plan to do there and here. In any event, in case you don’t happen to be a reader over there yet (and why not?), I thought I’d update you…
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy
"Spiritual But Not Religious" and the Path to God
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The following article was originally published on the Roads from Emmaus weblog in March of 2011. It’s been revised for this publication. I sometimes encounter folks who tell me that they are “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). I wish I asked more often what exactly that is supposed to mean, though I am usually held back from asking by a strong suspicion…
