Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Gospel's Good Soil
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In my experience, adding new members to the mission is best accomplished by keeping current members healthy. I think our mission has come to believe that ultimately it is God who plants new seeds in our mission, and that our responsibility is to provide good soil. We can get the word out there, we can advertise and announce our presence, but, generally, the folks…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Worship of God
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Both parts of my talk “The Worship of God” are now available via Ancient Faith Radio here and here as part of the Roads From Emmaus podcast. My approach in this talk reflects one of my ongoing concerns—preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Trinity, in a world that increasingly is either totally ignorant of its Creator or only takes a sort…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Behind the Barricades
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A somewhat bizarre and truly sad story has unfolded here in Emmaus. It seems that the president of the Emmaus Historical Society recently became embroiled in controversy within the society, and finally stepped down as president yesterday, just before the election for the presidency scheduled for this evening, leaving his opponent in the election uncontested. Today, the former president barricaded himself into a barn…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Scripture and Tradition
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Ancient Faith Radio now has both parts of my talk “Scripture and Tradition” available for download here and here as part of the Roads From Emmaus podcast. This talk is the second installment in the four-part Foundations of the Orthodox Faith series and was originally delivered on May 23, 2010. Those interested in a particular aspect of this talk, namely, the formation of the…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A Localist Moment in Emmaus, reprise
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I wrote last week regarding the proposed opening of a swingers’ club (to be named “The Vault”) on Main Street in Emmaus, at the very heart of the borough. Last night, to consider the matter, the borough’s zoning hearing board met at the Emmaus Community Park (an aptly named venue for this event), rather than their usual borough hall location. Suffice it to say…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Deepwater Horizon: Why Evangelical theology is helpless in the face of a catastrophic oil spill
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Every so often, I think it’s okay to indulge in an inflammatory headline. I recently read the lament “Ecological Catastrophe and the Uneasy Evangelical Conscience” by Russell D. Moore. It seems to have gotten a decent amount of circulation online, if only because it is written by an Evangelical Protestant talking about how ashamed he is that “environmentalism” has been the near exclusive realm…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A Localist Moment in Emmaus
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It seems that “quaint” Emmaus (the word the newspapers all use to describe our borough) has been targeted as a potential home for a swingers’ club, to be situated right on downtown Main Street. The fellow behind the club claims that it’s not going to be a “sex club,” that they’re going to be more innocuous than the Freemasons (will they also have funny…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Mystery of Christ
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
What I Did This Week
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Internet Discourse and the Fear of Death
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When I was studying Hamlet in college (which I did several times, being something of an addict for that story, despite my claims at The Tempest being my favorite of the Bard’s plays; I once took a class in which we spent three weeks on “Who’s there?”), if there is one thing I learned that the poor Dane learned too late, it was this:…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Upcoming Series: Foundations of the Orthodox Faith
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Samuel Johnson's Foot
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The following is an excerpt from a much longer talk I wrote but did not deliver, as I learned the day before the event that it was desired that I deliver a very different sort of lecture. The essential thrust of the talk, written for a mixed audience of both believers and unbelievers, was to prepare them to receive the Gospel, in this case,…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Earnest Contention
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This past weekend, I had two occasions on which I might have been said to go into “apologetics mode.” In the first (which was not really apologetical, strictly speaking), it was a study circle led by Roman Catholic theology and philosophy professors with their students, discussing Roman Catholic theology. I ended up speaking entirely more than I had intended, especially considering that those folks…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Orthodox Spiritual Life and the Environment Conference
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All of the talks from the April 16-17, 2010, conference of the Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration held at St. Tikhon’s Seminary are now online, courtesy of Ancient Faith Radio: Dr. Seraphim Bruce Foltz: Nature and Other Modern Idolatries: Kosmos, Ktisis, and Chaos in Environmental Metaphysics. (Dr. Foltz is philosophy professor at Eckerd College, a founder of SOPHIA, the Orthodox philosophical association; author of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Churching the Nation: Sharing the Orthodox Christian Faith in America
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Cultural Recusancy in Quotations from Men Whose Names Start with Initials
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…the spirit of wickedness in high places is now so powerful and many-headed in its incarnations that there seems nothing more to do than personally to refuse to worship any of the hydras’ heads. – J. R. R. Tolkien, from a 1969 letter to Amy Ronald The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Theological Significance of Political Liberty
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While attending this conference this weekend, I happened in some of my offhand remarks during one of the discussion sessions to tip my political hand as “localist / libertarian-leaning.” Of course, questions of ecology and how to work with God’s creation eventually do lead to economic and political issues, though I felt the conference successfully mostly steered clear of such things. (My impression of…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Reason and Conversion to Christ
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A longtime friend of mine (and former co-worker from my stagehand days) has apparently listened to the Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy podcast a lot more times than I have (he claims seven times, poor fellow). He recently sent me a note entitled “The subjugation of reason” and gave me permission to publish an excerpt here, along with my response: At your leisure, I would request…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Confessions of a Localist in Training
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I was recently sent this note by a young lady who listened to the first episode of the Roads From Emmaus podcast: …I listened to your first “Roads From Emmaus” podcast and instead of joy I got a guilty nausea in my stomach. The ideal “me” in my head agrees with you, we should reach out to our neighbors and community. I’ll admit I…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
This Holy Earth: Ecological Vision in the Cosmic Cathedral
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Raising Humanity
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The following is an excerpt from the lecture on evangelism which I will be giving in Bethlehem this coming Sunday. This represents some of my first articulated thinking on localist themes with regard to evangelism. Another aspect to the question of location in evangelism is perhaps a bit less obvious, and that is the need for us to foster human community in the places…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
New Podcast: Roads From Emmaus
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
To the Beyond
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Canticle for the Meeting of our Lord
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Canticle for the Meeting of Our Lord Long years ago I heard the Voice of God— foreshadowing to me the news of Christ, that death I would not see ’til I had seen th’awaited coming of the Son of Man. “Behold, the Virgin shall conceive,” I read, Isaiah’s vision did foretell the One to bring salvation to old Israel, His flesh and blood to…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Upcoming lecture in Bethlehem
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Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
New Jerusalem
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It seems that Allentown (our three years younger neighbor to the north of Emmaus and my temporary place of residence) has hired someone to come up with a new slogan: “City without limits.” I know that the purpose of this slogan is essentially for marketing for development, but I can think of few worse slogans for any town. Allentown, it should be noted, is…
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Upcoming lecture at Bucknell University
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