The Gospel’s Good Soil

In my experience, adding new members to the mission is best accomplished by keeping current members healthy. I think our mission has come to believe that ultimately it is God who plants new seeds in our mission, and that our responsibility is to provide good soil. We can get the word out there, we can advertise and announce our presence, but, generally, the folks


What I Did This Week

This week, I assisted at the historic Orthodox Episcopal Assembly of North and Central America, the first such meeting in more than two centuries of Orthodox Christian presence on this continent. To read my impressions of the event, see these two posts from the OrthodoxHistory.org website: Impressions from the Episcopal Assembly Further Impressions from the Episcopal Assembly

Earnest Contention

This past weekend, I had two occasions on which I might have been said to go into “apologetics mode.” In the first (which was not really apologetical, strictly speaking), it was a study circle led by Roman Catholic theology and philosophy professors with their students, discussing Roman Catholic theology. I ended up speaking entirely more than I had intended, especially considering that those folks


Reason and Conversion to Christ

A longtime friend of mine (and former co-worker from my stagehand days) has apparently listened to the Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy podcast a lot more times than I have (he claims seven times, poor fellow). He recently sent me a note entitled “The subjugation of reason” and gave me permission to publish an excerpt here, along with my response: At your leisure, I would request