Localism Archives — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

Can a Historic Christian Be a Nationalist?

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016 · 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., to…

The Church is Not the Building… Right?

May 13, 2016May 13, 2016 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

I hate it when people say that. Yes, there is a certain truth to the statement The Church is not the building. But it is usually said in the context of talking about buildings, and so what is meant by it is not really a counter of an obviously ridiculous idea, namely, that the Church is equal to a building. It is somewhat ironic,…

Redeeming the Time by Nurturing Community

November 13, 2014 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

St. Nektarios the Wonder-worker / Seventh Sunday of Luke, November 9, 2014 Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. An experienced senior priest once said to me, “Make the place you are into Paradise.” This saying occurred to me again this week when I read the phrase from…

Rootedness and Uprootedness: A Lament

August 13, 2013 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

In the past few weeks, I’ve learned of impending relocations of more relatives west of the Mississippi River, including one family that has been in the same state for decades and one elderly relative who has even been in the same house since the mid-1960s. One by one or in clumps, over the past several years it seems that both sides of my family…

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

June 3, 2013March 16, 2017 · 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…

The Election’s Over: Let’s All Work Together?

November 7, 2012 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

I was never going to be happy with the results of yesterday’s election. The leadership of both major American political parties is deeply compromised by corporatist interests who are served by an inflationary monetary policy managed by people who largely used to work for those interests and/or will do so again. Both major candidates are representatives of this entrenched political class. So there was…

A Firm Foothold

June 14, 2012 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again. —Frodo Baggins I happened upon this quotation again yesterday evening, while I was reading my daughter The Lord of the Rings. It seems a dauntingly long tome…

Saving the World from Suicide: Localism, Christian Evangelism and the Culture War

May 21, 2012 · Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time; so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and to save the world from suicide. —T. S. Eliot, “Thoughts After…