Author: admin

An 1864 Mathew Brady photo depicts President Lincoln reading a book with his youngest son, Tad

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Second Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1865

The morning after, I awoke to hear that US House of Representatives had passed by a vote of 220 to 215 a bill authorizing a major reorganization by the Federal government of health care in America. My first thought was, “Oh well, I’ve always wanted to live in Europe.”

Along with others, I have grave reservations not about the need for health care reform in this country, but on the form that it seems likely to take under the twin auspices of the Democratic led Congress and the Obama administration. I worry about the intrusion of the government into what is not only a personal matter but also more than 15% of our economy. Even for one as irenic as I try to be, I fear that philanthropic rhetoric conceals and justifies an authoritarian urge. Continue reading →

As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

Prv 27:17

I am generally encouraged by comments made by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in his recent speech (“A Changeless Faith for A Changing World”) delivered November 3, 2009 at Georgetown University.  Unlike his recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, I found his Georgetown speech a clear presentation of the Gospel and one in which he made his case that there is a direct connection between care for the environment and the Church’s sacramental and ascetical tradition.  Most importantly he clarified his earlier comments about the unity of environment; the unity of creation is not merely the result of physical forces or laws but, as His All Holiness states, the result of the personal and creative action and presence of the Most Holy Trinity.

Let me please begin, however, with where I disagree with His All Holiness. Continue reading →

His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew recently published an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (“Our Indivisible Environment,” 26 October 2009) in which he argues that “just as God is indivisible, so too is our global environment.”  He asserts that as the “molecules of water that comprise the great North Atlantic are neither European nor American” so too the “particles of atmosphere above the United Kingdom are neither Labour nor Tory.”

On the surface, his words reflect a cultural and intellectual tradition with deep roots in classical, pre-Christian Greek thought (especially Aristotle) as well as Holy Scripture and the teachings of the fathers of the Church (East and West).

His observations also owe much to Scholasticism, those Medieval Catholic scholars wrestled who the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christian faith, as well as the relationship of Christian faith to Judaism and Islam.  To his credit, the Patriarch is also in a discussion with scholars of different faith and intellectual traditions.

There is a difference here worth noting, however, and it is the difference between Christian scholars and scholars of other faith and ideological traditions. At the core of biblical faith lies the “scandal of particularity,” the notion of God’s election of a particular people, the Jews. This notion also lies at the heart of the Christian Gospel.

Continue reading →

“Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’
“But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.
‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:24-30

Let me offer an admittedly radical, and maybe even frightening, thought experiment.

What if Orthodox parishes  and dioceses in the United States were to surrender their non-profit status and instead incorporate themselves as profit, or at least not for profit, institutions?

Continue reading →