Author: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

The Very Rev. Archpriest Andrew Stephen Damick is Chief Content Officer of Ancient Faith Ministries, former pastor (2009-2020) of St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and author of The Lord of Spirits, Arise, O God, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, Bearing God and An Introduction to God. He is co-host of the following podcasts: The Lord of Spirits (with Fr. Stephen De Young), The Areopagus (with Michael Landsman), and Amon Sûl (with Richard Rohlin). He is also host of The Orthodox Pilgrim, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, Orthodox Engagement, and Roads from Emmaus. With Richard Rohlin he is collaborating on the major documentary series The Wolf and the Cross. You can follow him on YouTube, Facebook, Telegram and Instagram.

Why I Love (True) Religion Because I Love Jesus, Redux

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
This coming Sunday, Jan. 12, will be the two year anniversary of the post that has inexplicably (to me) probably been the most-read thing I’ve ever written. It’s always somewhat odd to me to note the things that get the most hits. They’re almost invariably stuff that’s more off-the-cuff than much-deliberated (like this silly post of coffee and theology jokes). (Kind of depressing, really.)…

A Tolkien-Shaped Mind

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I do not know how aware most folks are of what books shape their basic imaginations—the formation that to a large part determines what brings them delight, what strikes them as worth attention, what gives them a vocabulary for the world. For me, there are really two sources that give me that shape—the Bible and the fiction works of J. R. R. Tolkien. This…

Fall Speaking Engagements: New Jersey, Georgia, SE Pennsylvania

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I’ve got several upcoming speaking engagements this Fall. If you’re in the area, I’d love to see you: October 19: Sharing Orthodoxy in the New World: Conversations on Faith with Family and Friends (a conference on Orthodox evangelism) at Assumption Orthodox Church in Clifton, New Jersey. October 26: The Church in the Bible & The Church After the Bible (two separate talks) (event page…

Thoughts from just south of Dunder Mifflin

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I watched the series finale of “The Office” (US) last night (yes, after watching the entire series). And I have to admit that I got a little sentimental at all the Jim/Pam stuff of the last few episodes. I very much appreciated that, during the course of their marriage, the writers gave them some real problems and that Pam even says in the final…

A Decade that Belongs

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Ten years ago today, Nicole Ann Boury married me. After ten years, I’m still not entirely sure why she did it. I know I haven’t always made her happy. I know I’ve many times made her unhappy. But even through all the uncertainty and instability of the past ten years—which is not very much for some, but is for us—we still belong. Over this…

Priest vs. Machine: Dollar Rent A Car as an Emblem of Bureaucratic Nihilism

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I offer up the following experience as a data point along the continuum into deeper inhumanity because of the too-big-to-care nature of much of corporate and government life in these latter days: I recently had the misfortune of renting a car from Dollar Rent A Car at the Atlanta airport. The original estimate for the rental was $93.50 for three days’ use. But in…