Is the Bible a book which each person should read and decide for himself what it means, or is the Bible a book whose meaning is given by the Church? The former idea appears to contain perfect liberty to allow the Bible to speak to the individual unhindered by man’s tradition; the latter idea appears…
Almost there. Tonight is the last night of the Akathist services for the Orthodox churches around the world. I am home solo tonight with the kids so there was no chance for me to make it. This has been my experience throughout Lent this year. I’ve only attended a single Lenten service besides Sundays. Kind…
All my life I’ve admired mastery. It doesn’t even matter what sort of mastery. You could be anything from a virtuoso violinist to a champion marble player; if you’re one of the best in the world you’ve got my respect. Save me the higher degrees and titles and whatnot, I couldn’t give a hoot. I…
I happened across an odd blog article this week. It was an argument meant to refute the existence of God using the fact that moral sins are not punished physically the way that, say, walking into the street during heavy traffic is punished, or putting your hand on a hot stove, or the like. His…
I’ve never been good at praying. Reading, hell yes! If reading was an Olympic sport I would have a closet full of medals. Being in my head is very comfy and I can stay there for days, weeks even. I’ve wondered why being rational, objective, and abstract feels so good. Maybe it’s because I get to…
“You don’t need Lent to be a Christian,” my Word of Faith, Evangelical in-law said to me at the start of Lent last year. I replied, “Of course you don’t, you also don’t need the Bible.” Truly, how many Christians had a “Bible” in the first 200-300 years of the Church? Exactly zero. Yet most…
Since the time I first became a Christian 23 years ago in a wild charismatic church, I knew that I wanted to be a counselor. I didn’t know what that looked like necessarily at the time, I just knew I wanted to help people overcome their grief and internal struggles. Having come from a difficult…
