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The Problem with having a God
Read more: The Problem with having a GodI offer a little personal observation today (there is usally some everyday even when I am writing about something else). But today I am thinking about the problem of having a God. The problem with God is not the same thing as the problem with religion. Many people have a religion but do not have […]
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No Development of Doctrine?
Read more: No Development of Doctrine?I must first issue a notice of my ignorance. I have never read Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Thus I am at a distinct disadvantage in discussing it. I know that Newman is a great favorite of my dear friend, Fr. Alvin Kimel, over at Pontifications. I do, however, suspect that it […]
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Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
Read more: Rightly Dividing the Word of TruthNothing has greater importance in the Christian life than the place of Holy Scripture. On this, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant can agree. Even if one places emphasis on the role of Holy Tradition, they still have to admit that the most prominent manifestation of Holy Tradition in the Church are the Scriptures themselves. But, of […]
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“Save Me Whether I Want It Or Not” – Justification and the Orthodox
Read more: “Save Me Whether I Want It Or Not” – Justification and the OrthodoxOne of my favorite prayers (from the “Morning Prayers” which is not one of the services, but one of many variations of private prayers used by Orthodox Christians) is to Our Lord Jesus Christ, and is quite clear on justification – at least in a way that should quieten any critics of Orthodoxy who think […]
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Prayer to My Guardian Angel and Some Other Thoughts
Read more: Prayer to My Guardian Angel and Some Other ThoughtsFor an update and additional comments on this article see angels. O Holy Angel, who stand by my wretched soul and my passionate life: do not abandon me, a sinner, neither depart from me because of my lack of self-control. Leave no room for the evil demon to gain control of me through the violence […]
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Solzhenitsyn on Sitting Down
Read more: Solzhenitsyn on Sitting DownIn Twilight I well remember the very widespread custom, back in the South, of “twilighting.” Carried over from before the Revolution, it might have also been fortified by the meager, perilous years of the Civil War. Yet this practice had come about much earlier. Was it born of the months-long warmness of the Southern dusk? […]
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The Loneliness of Modern Man
Read more: The Loneliness of Modern ManIn the Benedictine tradition, a monk makes four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience and stability. Most people are familiar with the first three but not with the fourth. In classical Benedictine practice it meant that a monk stayed put: he did not move from monastery to monastery. It was not a new idea. Before Benedict had […]
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A Visual Journey into Orthodoxy
Read more: A Visual Journey into Orthodoxy
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God’s Justice and the Fathers
Read more: God’s Justice and the FathersI am grateful for the responses yesterday that were posted on my article Once and For All, and particularly Ephrem’s passages from the Fathers on justice. I have certainly been among the Orthodox writers, speakers, etc., in America who have given short shrift to forensic (legal) imagery when thinking about God and how we understand […]
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A Personal Note of Thanks
Read more: A Personal Note of ThanksFor a couple of years I was an occasional poster on Pontifications, the Blog created and maintained by my dear friend, Fr. Al Kimel, and it was he who suggested that I create my own. It was a friendly suggestion. Yesterday, after a little more than two months, we passed 50,000 views, which is far […]
Matthew, in western art the painter is always present, the person in the picture is a creature of the painter.…