Category: Culture

No, Christmas is Not Pagan. Just Stop.

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Well, it’s time for a good Christmas rant. This requires a rant, because every year, we see the same ignorant silliness. (Sorry, but it’s just true.) Supposedly, Christmas is secretly pagan, secretly syncretist, secretly a co-opting of pagan stuff and ignorantly claiming it to be Christian. But the truth about these things is so available that it’s literally staring out at you even fromā€¦

The Three Ways Christians Approach the World

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
There are generally three approaches that Christians have taken when it comes to their surrounding cultures: 1) Rejection, resistance, and hostility: This approach sharply distinguishes the Church from the world, emphasizing that the Church is so much “not of this world” that the world must be fled and an alternate community established. It is a posture that is fully closed to the world —ā€¦

#LivesMatter. But Why?

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
It’s been something of a rough week for news in America. Two very controversial police killings of black men were followed by a protest against police brutality in Dallas that turned deadly when snipers killed several police officers and wounded others. And not too many weeks ago was the deadly mass shooting in Orlando. Outrage. Politics. Hypocrisy. Outcry. Violence. Hatred. Injustice. Race war. Theseā€¦

Can a Historic Christian Be a Nationalist?

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lately I’ve been seeing nationalistic / racialistic rhetoric from some who identify as Christian. Some say that this is just their politics and has nothing to do with their religion. That is, of course, a distinctly secular idea, that one can practice some part of life in a way that is separate from religion. While we don’t have to pursue theocracy, dominionism, etc., toā€¦

Preaching Christ in a World That Doesn’t Need God: Orthodox Christianity and Secularism

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The following is from a larger talk I am working on about Orthodoxy in the West. Secularism is essentially the idea that one can conceive of a world without God. It is the belief in an autonomous order existing apart from the divine order. It is not necessarily a denial of Godā€™s existence, by the way. Such outright atheism has never been that attractiveā€¦

Come Out and Be Separate: Redeeming the World by Standing Apart

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost / First Sunday of Luke, September 27, 2015 II Corinthians 6:16-7:1; Luke 5:1-11 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. I had a friend who was a Ph.D. student at a university in New York City. He was a brilliant, traditional Orthodox Christian whoā€¦

You Bleed Just to Know You’re Alive

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The Forefeast and Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross, September 13, 2015 Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. This week, I noticed a pattern in popular music of our time that I had not noticed before. It was something I heard inā€¦