Tag: culture

12 Reasons Why I Became and/or Remain an Orthodox Christian

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Lists like this are usually so much clickbait, I know, but I thought it was nevertheless worthwhile to compile a list of most of the reasons why I became and/or remain an Orthodox Christian. Some of these things were not really on my radar when I became Orthodox in 1998, but they are part of the reason why I genuinely do love belonging to


A Tolkien-Shaped Mind

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I do not know how aware most folks are of what books shape their basic imaginations—the formation that to a large part determines what brings them delight, what strikes them as worth attention, what gives them a vocabulary for the world. For me, there are really two sources that give me that shape—the Bible and the fiction works of J. R. R. Tolkien. This


The Tolkien Legacy

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
It’s a rare, if not exceptional, case. In an era where most people would sell their souls to be talked about, Christopher Tolkien has not expressed himself in the media for 40 years. No interviews, no announcements, no meetings — nothing. It was a decision he made at the death of his father, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973), British author of the hugely famous


The Mass Cult of Big

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The following is essentially a piecing together of selections from a Facebook thread in which I participated today. The following quotation led off the discussion: We have become fascinated by the idea of bigness, and we are quite convinced that if we can only ‘stage’ something really big before the world, we will shake it, and produce a mighty religious awakening. – D. Martin


Evangelicals at the Eucharist

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
I was fascinated today to run across this call to the Eucharist, written from a Reformed perspective, by Peter J. Leithart, pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho, and an eminent Evangelical theologian. (Seeing this, along with my recent posts on Evangelicals observing Lent, I’ve decided to create a new category for posts on this weblog: Evangelical Appropriation of Tradition.) This is a


The Eminem Ethic

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
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