Interview with Theron Mathis on “Sword in the Fire”

Theron Mathis, author of The Rest of the Bible: A Guide to the Old Testament of the Early Church, has graciously conducted a brief interview with me regarding Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy and other matters on his weblog Sword in the Fire. Excerpt from the introduction: Fr. Andrew does the seemingly impossible in a mere 224 pages. He gives a broad scope of Orthodox belief,…

The Eminem Ethic

I spotted this image on Facebook today, and it puts forth a commonly accepted ethic, which I’ve dubbed here the Eminem Ethic. Essentially, various categories of race, sexual desire, physical appearance, and economic status don’t matter when it comes to winning his kindness. What matters is that “you’re nice to me.” This sounds pretty good. This is a morality bandwagon that probably most folks…

The Return to God

Sunday of the Prodigal Son, 2012 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. One of the principal themes that we meditate upon during these weeks that precede Great Lent and during the Fast itself is forgiveness. And it’s no wonder, because the Christian Church is really the only place in which forgiveness makes…

The Wise Men of Silesia

Throughout much of January and often into February, I spend close to 20-30 hours every week visiting the homes of parishioners and blessing them as part of the annual Theophany celebrations. I put several hundred miles on my car’s odometer during this time. Aside from the extra workload and of course the joy of visiting parishioners in their homes, I also particularly enjoy driving…

Canticle for the Meeting of our Lord

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…

Two Lectures Available Online

Two of my lectures from the recent Meeting the World series are now fully online, courtesy of Ancient Faith Radio: Meeting the World: Taking the Gospel Into Our Times and Our Places: Part 1, Part 2 A Peculiar People: Orthodox Christian Identity in a Hostile World: Part 1, Part 2 Three more will be available in the next several weeks, each broken into two…

Religion, Rules and Reality

One of the unfortunate aspects of Internet converse that I’ve noticed during my nearly twenty years online is that often interlocutors write as though they assume that what they see in front of them is in fact the only thing that a poster has ever written on a subject. I think this comes of living in a sound-byte world, in which it is proposed…