Glory to God for All Things
Humility and Love
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The following is from the Afterword of Father Sophrony’s Saint Silouan the Athonite. If we cast our thoughts back over the bimillenary history of Christianity we are dazzled by the enormous wealth of Christian culture. Vast libraries full of the grandiose works of the human mind and spirit – innumerable academies, universities, institutes, where hundreds of thousands of young people drink thirstily of the living waters of wisdom. Tens of thousands of…
Glory to God for All Things
Flattery and a Secret Plot by the Kremlin
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All flattery, my friends, as Josef Pieper well taught us, is a form of manipulation. Mass flattery manipulates the soul of a culture. It drags a nation to hell. A quote from Ochlophobist‘s May 19 posting. The thought is worth slow contemplation. I am reminded of a tee-shirt (admittedly too cute) with the picture of a kitten in a basket. The caption on the shirt reads: “Where are we going? Why are…
Glory to God for All Things
I Really Wasn't Kidding - There's Another Gospel Out There
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I generally enjoy our comments and also following the links when others share some portion of Glory to God for All Things with others. Last week I posted on the necessity for the whole gospel – that is – the gospel received by the Apostles and taught to the Church. I noted that in many areas of modern Christianity, very essential elements of that gospel are in danger. I was struck when…
Glory to God for All Things
Learning to Wait
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I have never done a search to see how many times the word for “patience” is used in the New Testament – but my general impression is that it is a lot. Patience is not only a virtue, it is utterly necessary to our life in Christ. I can recall having almost no patience at all as a young man. At age nineteen I was sure that the Second Coming could be…
Glory to God for All Things
Keeping the End of Things in its Place - and a Little Bob Dylan
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I started to entitle this, “Keeping Eschatology in its Place,” but then I remembered that I should eschew obfuscation. 🙂 But the doctrine of the Last Things, generally referred to as “Eschatology,” is deeply important for our lives as Christians – primarily because our faith is an eschatological faith. There it is in the Creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead…” Like the incarnation, crucifixion,…
Glory to God for All Things
All the Fullness of Christ
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When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made…
Glory to God for All Things
How Much Is Too Little? How Much Is Enough?
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One of the most pervasive rules in Christian believing is the Latin phrase, “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi,” usually rendered, “The Law of Praying is the Law of Believing.” It is a simple way of saying both that we believe what we pray (praying will inevitably bring about a conformity in believing), and that if something is to be preserved it must become part of the liturgical life. Time and history have largely…
Glory to God for All Things
Ships and Saints and All the Company of Heaven
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I offered a quote from Charles Taylor in a previous posting – as a small reminder I offer it again. One of the central points common to all Reformers was their rejection of mediation. The mediaeval church as they understood it, a corporate body in which some, more dedicated, members could win merit and salvation for others who were less so, was anathema to them. There could be no such thing as…
Glory to God for All Things
Falwell's Death - the Passing of an Era?
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When I was fresh out of seminary, the year was 1980, an election year. I was a newly ordained Episcopal Deacon, serving in a parish with a priest who told me on the first day, “I do not pray.” That same summer I began to get mailings from something called the “Moral Majority.” Those of you who are younger than I will not remember a time when American politics were less polarized…
Glory to God for All Things
The Ship of Salvation
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One of the central points common to all Reformers was their rejection of mediation. The mediaeval church as they understood it, a corporate body in which some, more dedicated, members could win merit and salvation for others who were less so, was anathema to them. There could be no such thing as more devoted or less devoted Christians: the personal commitment must be total or it was worthless…. for Protestantism there can…
Glory to God for All Things
Living Large and Love
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It is common to both the writings of Dostoevsky [particularly in the Brothers Karamazov] and in the teachings of the Elder Sophrony and St. Silouan, that each man must see and understand himself to be responsible for the sins of all. This can be a statement that troubles some – as if doing this were a mere spiritual game – or a violation of others’ responsibility. It is, in fact, a profound…
Glory to God for All Things
Truth and the Icon
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Icons are very peculiar things as art goes. Those who do not understand them often find their “flat,” and almost “stylized” presentation of human beings and events rather stitled or off-putting. The non-Orthodox, I believe, realize that there’s more to an icon than meets the eye, but are not sure where to begin or how to frame the question. Not all Orthodox know the correct answers. We have many visitors to St.…
Glory to God for All Things
From A Spiritual Psalter
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St. Theophan the Recluse collected excerpts from the works of St. Epraim the Syrian and arranged them as 150 “Psalms”. the following is Psalm 11. I Can Control Neither Myself nor the Enemy. Help Me, O Lord! No one can heal my disease except He Who knows the depths of the heart. How many times have I set boundaries for myself and built walls between myself and sin! But my thoughts transgressed the…
Glory to God for All Things
Scripture and Tradition - Fr. John Behr
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The following is excerpted from Fr. John Behr’s lecture on the Orthodox Faith, delivered in 1998 at the University of North Carolina. A link to the full text is given at the end of the article. Fr. John is now Dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary. Rather than talking about the historical or external aspects of the Churches who have identified themselves as Orthodox, “Orthodoxy” in the first sense of the term, it is primarily…
Glory to God for All Things
Frederica Mathewes-Green on Autism
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Glory to God for All Things
See Paradise
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This June I will be joined by Fr. Justin Mathews and his family here in my ministry at St. Anne Orthodox Church. Among other things, he is a contemporary Christian musician with some excellent work. I have a feeling that I’m going to know much more about contemporary Christian Orthodox musicians in the near future. I offer one of his songs here for your edification and ask you to remember him and…
Glory to God for All Things
The Problem of Goodness
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From my first class in Philosophy 101 in college, the so-called “Problem of Evil” has been tossed up as the “clincher” in arguments against the existence of God. How can a good God allow innocent people to suffer? The most devastating case ever made on the subject was in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Ivan Karamazov, in the chapter entitled “Rebellion,” which is the chapter preceding the famous “Grand Inquisitor,” makes the details of…
Glory to God for All Things
His Life Is Mine
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The following is an excerpt from Rosemary Edmond’s introduction to Archimandrite Sophrony’s His Life is Mine. In these paragraph’s she describes the great monk’s journey from Paris, where he had been an artist and a seminarian, to Mt. Athos, where he would take up his vocation as a monk. He speaks of despair and the knowledge of God. The lives of saints are not a rational argument, per se, for the Christian…
Glory to God for All Things
The Despair of Unbelief
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I am gradually learning things that I have not known before – or only suspected. Posting occasionally as I have on the subject of atheism, and receiving occasional reponses from atheists, is an education in itself. There is atheism as I imagine it to be (I suppose what it would look like were I one) and there is atheism as it has historically expressed itself (in such writers as Nietsche or Sartre)…
Glory to God for All Things
A Song, A Saint, A Good Listen
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I’m 53 years old – so I don’t hear a lot of contemporary music. One may not be connected with the other but it feels that way. Nonetheless I recently stumbled across the music of a contemporary band called, “Joyful Sorrow.” They’re easy to listen to, and the songs seem largely focused on the lives of the saints. I was particularly struck by one on St. Xenia of Petersburg. The lyrics are…
Glory to God for All Things
A Poem in the Light
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About the Samaritan Woman and her meeting with Jesus at the well, where she was drawing water. There is a moment I would like to hold up, A point of light that has pierced the eye of my heart. I know that I will have to be satisfied with walking around it, as it is not the kind of thing that can be pinned down. Here it is: That Jesus saw her,…
Glory to God for All Things
"Do You Know Jesus?"
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I have written in numerous posts about various aspects of conversion to the Orthodox Christian faith. Oftentimes there is an unspoken agreement between myself as writer and those who read in which we assume that we understand each other – that when I say “conversion” we all know what I mean. On reflection there are several very distinct kinds of conversions – though each has a relationship to the other. There is…
Glory to God for All Things
A Letter from Butyrskaya Prison - Pascha, 1928
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Serge Schmemann, son of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his wonderful little book, Echoes of a Native Land, records a letter written from one of his family members of an earlier generation, who spent several years in the prisons of the Soviets and died there. The letter, written on the night of Pascha in 1928 is to a family member, “Uncle Grishanchik” (This was Grigory Trubetskoi who had managed to emigrate to Paris).…
Glory to God for All Things
Nothing from Nothing Leaves Nothing
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One of the intellectual problems encountered by atheism, though not one that is frequently mentioned, is its tendency to reductionism. If the universe is closed, then ultimately the story of things is much less complex than they might otherwise be and far more predictable. Indeed, the atheist account of reality is frequently boring. I am reminded of Carl Sagan’s now famous description of the stars: “Billions and billions” (no one else could do…
Glory to God for All Things
Life from within our Death
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The following is taken from Archimandrite Sophrony’s His Life is Mine. It is a deep word of encouragement to us all that in Christ healing is truly possible. It is usual for the Christian to be aware concurrently of the prsence of the never-fading celestial glory and of the brooding cloud of death hanging over the world. Though the feeling of death torments the soul, it cannot extinguish the fire of faith. The…
Glory to God for All Things
Introducing the First Book
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If you’ve seen it elsewhere, I apologize. If you have not seen this, no apology needed.
Glory to God for All Things
What Theology Looks Like
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Some seventeen years ago (I cannot believe it has been that long) I became a “dropout” of sorts, withdrawing formally from the PhD program at Duke University and converting my studies into material for an M.A. in theology. The story is more convoluted and personal than I would care to share in this public forum. But I recall a conversation I had with Stanley Hauerwas, who was one of the Professors on…
