Is the Rapture (really) today?

The following is a somewhat expanded and revised version of a post I made five months ago, the last time the Rapture didn’t happen. From suggestions that we should all release blow-up dolls filled with helium at exactly noon on May 21, to an invitation on Facebook for post-Rapture looting (here’s the Oct. 21 event; after all, many cars will be “unmanned,” you know),…

“We have to begin building our own institutions.”

October 9, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. I have a friend who is a Ph.D. student at a university in New York City. He is a brilliant, traditional Orthodox Christian who is serious about his faith in Christ and also serious about doing real scholarly work. He is also possibly…

Orthodox Christians and 9/11: We wrestle not against flesh and blood

Sunday before the Elevation of the Cross, September 11, 2011 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. “Nothing will ever be the same.” So went the refrain again and again and again on September 11, 2001, and for weeks and now years following. I also clearly remember Dan Rather just saying over and…

Orthodox History Symposium early registration discount expiring

I was asked to pass this on. God willing, I’ll be giving a short paper at this symposium about the detachment of the Antiochian parishes from the Russian archdiocese in the 1920s and 30s. For Immediate Release Registration Discount for Orthodox Conference at Princeton About to Expire There are still a few days left to register at the early-bird rate for “Pilgrims and Pioneers:…

Why I Can’t Be Your Spiritual Father: A Localist Lament

As I think probably happens to just about every clergyman who has some sort of media presence (even one so minor as mine), I get requests every so often from folks essentially to do the job that their local pastor should be doing. Now, it may be that they don’t have a local pastor, perhaps because there is no Orthodox church near them, because…