The Curious Case of St. John Cassian

· Fr. Stephen De Young
St. John Cassian, in his 75 year life lived at the turn of the fifth century, interacted with every major Christian figure of the Patristic Age, founded monasticism in the West, laid the theological foundation for the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, wrote the papal brief for the position of the Roman See at the Third Ecumenical Council, and wrote the most read work…

Sikhism Compared with Orthodox Christianity

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
In the wake of the recent shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, many folks in the West are probably just hearing about Sikhism for the first time. The following is an adapted excerpt from the brief section on Sikhism in Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems through the Lens of the Ancient Christian Faith. If there are any converts from Sikhism…

“Spiritual But Not Religious” and the Path to God

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The following article was originally published on the Roads from Emmaus weblog in March of 2011. It’s been revised for this publication. I sometimes encounter folks who tell me that they are “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). I wish I asked more often what exactly that is supposed to mean, though I am usually held back from asking by a strong suspicion…

The “Biblical” Argument for Abortion

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A fellow pro-life friend of mine recently sent me a post by the theologically and politically liberal Christian writer Fred “Slactivist” Clark in favor of abortion titled The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal. It begins this way: In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal. Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at…

We’re All Children Now – A Response to Bledsoe (and Leithart) on Orthodoxy

· O&H Contributor
Peter Leithart (a minister in the PCA, author of multiple books on theology, literature, etc.) has recently re-blogged some thoughts from a counterpart in the “Federal Vision” movement, Rich Bledsoe. These thoughts were directed towards both Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church. For those unaware (likely the vast majority of you), the “Federal Vision” is a theological movement within present-day Reformed Presbyterianism,…

Ecclesiological Darwinism: Reformed Catholicity’s Denial of the Foundation of the Reformation

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
It has always been one of the central claims of the Protestant Reformation that what was being reformed was a distortion of Christian life. The foundational narrative of the Reformation has always been precisely one of return, which is why the watchwords ad fontes (“to the sources”) rang with such power. With an embrace of sola scriptura, it was believed the Protestant…

Convention Season

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
We’ve been a bit sparse on posts the past couple of weeks, so I thought I would at least put up a brief note so you don’t think we’ve disappeared.  Our collective quietness has been due, of course, to some summer vacationing, but also because some of us are attending to the professional habits that summer so often occasions—conferences. I always imagine…

The Eminem Ethic

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
The following article was originally published on the Roads from Emmaus weblog in February of 2012. 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…