145 Search Results for theology+of+the+cross
The Pilgrimage of Holy Week
The Death of Christ and the Life of Man
Several years ago, someone wrote and asked, "Why did Christ have to die on the Cross?" It is the question that prompted this article. Recently, we have been having a discussion regarding the atonement within the comments section of the blog. I have pointe ...
The Ladder of Divine Ascent and Moral Improvement
The Act of Veneration
Modern Illusions
Unecumenism – The Saving Union
If It Makes You Happy
No One Is Saved Alone
No More Debt
A Lesser Atonement
The Moral Path of Being
If Christian morality is not a legal or forensic matter, how are we to think about moral behavior? Does the word have no use for Orthodox Christians? What do we think about when we confess our sins? If morality is ontological - a matter of being - what doe ...
St. Mary of Egypt and Moral Progress
The Bible and the Spirit of Democracy
The Grammar of the Faith
Singing the Lord’s Song
Orthodoxy Versus Christian Materialism
Over the years I find myself coming back to a number of ideas within the modern world that differ markedly from Orthodox thought. These are ideas that are imbedded so deep within our culture that they seem self-evident to most people. Many Orthodox believe ...
The Marriage of Love and Hate
The genius of Dostoevsky lies in the profound theological insight of his tumbled novels. They can be difficult reads for many people - particularly in our modern setting. He has “too many characters” and they “talk a lot.” His characters are comple ...
The Scope of Passover and Penal Substitution Theory
One of the terms used in the early fathers when interpreting the Scriptures was the “scope" of Scripture. By this they meant backing away from the detail of the text to see the larger picture, the “scope” of a broad reading. This technique was partic ...
Orthodoxy and the Global Threat
The peculiar approach of Orthodoxy to the peoples of the nations is often a point of criticism. The so-called “national Churches” are seen as hotbeds of cultural intransigence and sources of division. The modern difficulties between Constantinople and ...
Creation and Evolution
The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ is the proper beginning point for all Christian theology. Christ’s Pascha should be the source for all Christian reflection. It is clear that the disciples themselves did not understand the Scriptures nor ...
The Agent of Change
As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of "cause and effect." It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal as ...
Therapeutic Substitutionary Atonement
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures... (1 Cor. 15:3-4) No statement is more c ...
America and the Perversion of Christianity
The Time Lords versus John Nelson Darby
A timeline stretched across the front of the classroom, presenting a quick glance at the world and all that was fit to know. The subject was "World History," and the year was some point in my early teens. The "World" in those days was a standard recitation ...
The True Agent of Change
As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of "cause and effect." It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal as ...
From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of Christ
Man is mud whom God has commanded to become god. - St. Gregory of Nyssa +++ How do you create a God? How do you create a being that has true freedom, true love and thus, true existence? This is obviously not an entirely rational question - but it is a ser ...
A Life of Thanksgiving
Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation. Fr. Alexander Schmemann I have just completed a week in New Mexico, visiting a monastery and leading a retreat in Santa Fe. One of the retreat participants reminded me of this post on givi ...
Justice Enough?
The human desire for justice is insatiable. And that is a problem. It is a problem because an insatiable desire can never be satisfied: there is no end to our desire for justice. It is a problem because many Christians use justice as a lens for understan ...
All In The Head
Some questions are so obvious we fail to ask them. Is it all in the head? The question is whether the sense of spiritual, refers to anything other than ourselves. Is there any connection between myself and others, between myself and God, between myself ...
The Christian Crisis
Any student of Church history should be well aware that there has been no century in which the Christian faith was safe, untroubled and not in crisis. To a certain extent, the Cross will always bring Christians into crisis. However, these are some thoughts ...
The True Agent of Change
As inhabitants of our modern culture, we find ourselves trapped in a world of "cause and effect." It is a physical explanation of the universe that has, for all intents and purposes, become a universal metaphor, dominating religion and the most personal as ...
So Great A Cloud of Witnesses
...who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armi ...
Escape from Reason
Francis Schaeffer, the Evangelical Protestant theologian, authored a book by the title Escape from Reason. He argued that modernity could only find a solid ground within a world grounded in the inerrancy of Scripture. This article does not engage Schaeffer ...
Apocalypse Now
Few teachings of the Christian faith are as easily misunderstood and equally misapplied as the things pertaining to the "End of the World." Christian history, both East and West, offers numerous examples of popular misunderstandings - some of which led to ...
On Pascha – Melito of Sardis
Among the most powerful meditations on Pascha is found in the writings of Melito of Sardis (ca. 190 AD). His writing On Pascha is both a work of genius as poetry and a powerful work of theology. Its subject is the Lord's Pascha - particularly as an interpr ...
From the Foundations
Among the more interesting statements in Holy Scripture is found in Rev. 13:8: All who dwell on earth will worship it [the beast], everyone whose name has not been written in the book of life, of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world... ...
The Grace of Just Showing Up
There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else's goodwill and kindness (God's) has now freed us from the cons ...
The Life of Thanksgiving
This year I will make the annual pilgrimage back to South Carolina to be with family for the (American) Thanksgiving holiday. Fewer of my children will be there - a mark of the maturing of their own families and the difficulty of travel at this time of ye ...
Fellowship and the Tower of Babel
I had an occasion last week to be confronted by a Protestant fundamentalist "street preacher." Wearing a cassock and a cross in public clearly identifies me as a priest (though in this part of the world most people know nothing of Orthodox priests). It als ...
The Mystery of Goodness
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God (3John 1:11). One of the most common affirmations in Orthodox services is the goodness of God. Many services conclude wi ...
A Secular Eucharist
Thinking about God and communion with God are not the same thing. The modern world is a difficult place for those who believe in God. The reigning culture has relentlessly moved God out of the day-to-day world and relegated Him to various "religious spher ...
We Have Seen
I have been on the road and out-of-town this week, visiting with my daughter and her husband in Louisiana (where I enjoyed the very kind hospitality of St. Gabriel Antiochian Orthodox Church in Lafayette). May God richly bless all of them. I post this arti ...
Hidden and Triumphant – Learning the Story
Orthodox Christianity has sometimes been called, "The World's Best Kept Secret." There is a certain truth to this - the ignorance in the Western world of Byzantine history, let alone Russian and Balkan history - is staggering. Many Orthodox are uninformed ...
Why Small Things Matter
A reader's comment on an old posting of mine (from 2007) took me back to read the same. It seemed worth re-posting. Some things bear repeating - again and again, as they say. Perhaps one of the greatest disservices done to Christians by the spate of "Left ...
The Change of the Most High
As we celebrate Christ's Paschal victory - these thoughts are offered on the nature of our deliverance. One of the Psalms appointed for use in this season declares: "Now is the change of the Most High." Pascha is indeed God's change - which is why we ourse ...
Just Showing Up and the Work of Grace
There has been a tendency in much teaching about the notion of salvation by grace to ground the image in a legal or forensic metaphor. Thus, we are saved by grace in the sense that someone else's goodwill and kindness (God's) has now freed us from the cons ...
Looking for the Self in All the Wrong Places
A few years ago, a major American magazine dubbed a particular age-group as the "me generation." It would have been more accurate to describe the whole of modernity as a "me generation." For it has been a hallmark of our age to fashion a particular underst ...
Thanksgiving
This year I will make the annual pilgrimage back to South Carolina to be with family for the (American) Thanksgiving holiday. Fewer of my children will be there - a mark of the maturing of their own families and the difficulty of travel at this time of yea ...